


Dead-Last

by McGinnisINC



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 12:45:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11760180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McGinnisINC/pseuds/McGinnisINC
Summary: Levi/OFC, canon-verse.Wall Maria fell and Joan lost everything. Hoping to find some sense of purpose, she joined the scouts and very quickly realized she was in over her head - especially when it comes to the infamous Captain Levi.~*~“We need to set ground rules,” Levi continued.Joan folded the pants and put them in the dirty pile. “Well, what rules do you usually set, sir?”“I don’t,” he said simply. Joan glanced up, startled. She tilted her head at her captain but he was still a closed book.“You don’t set rules or... ?”“Or.” He blinked at her.Mouth agape, Joan leaned in and in a whisper asked, “Sir, are you a… virgin?”The smack upside the head was a bit harsher this time. Okay. That answered her question.





	1. Chapter 1

Wake up to the sun  
Clouds always come undone  
You give the light I need  
Like water to a seed

Wading in until  
One to talk to be real  
And prove me wrong it seems  
A heart can truly gleam

~*~

“Where are you going, little girl?”

“We just want to play, little girl…”

Levi’s ears perked up and his footfalls slowed to a stop. Assholes saying nasty shit in the Underground was hardly uncommon. Equally commonplace were the sniffles that followed. But as common as they were, Levi could never seem to get used to it. Life was hard enough in the Underground. No need for scum to make it any more difficult for anyone else. He mentally calculated how much time he could devote to beating the assholes before he’d be late meeting Farlan and Isabel. He’d probably get a little bloody, too. Gross.

“Go away,” Levi spoke coolly to the cluster of thugs.

In unison, the three young men turned and in doing so, revealed their prey: a girl no more than nine or ten, huddled on the alley floor. Unlike all the other vermin down below, this girl wore a dress that was still pristine and her face was unblemished. She clearly didn’t belong here.

Levi turned his attention to the thugs, meeting each one with a piercing glare. It was the kind that made lesser men tremble. These boys didn’t tremble – good on them – but they did pause, share a glance between each other, and slowly retreat up the alley. Whether it was because they recognized Levi and knew his deadly reputation or because he was just giving off bad-ass-motherfucker vibes and they knew they couldn’t take him, Levi didn’t know. Levi did know better than to take his eyes off of them until they rounded the corner. Another sniffle brought his attention back to the girl.

Curling his upper lip a bit, he considered his options. Walking away seemed like a great one, but his curiosity was getting the best of him.

Carefully, the girl lowered the arm she had been using to shield her face, and finally looked into the face of her savior. Immediately upon catching his gaze, the girl flinched back.

Levi sighed, deeply. This was going to be annoying, wasn’t it?

~*~

Levi carefully sipped his tea, letting his eyes slide around the crowded mess hall. It was more crowded than he remembered, the lights low and flickering. He squashed the urge to tap his foot. Truly, he had a mountain and a half of paperwork to get through because of all the new recruits and he was already regretting getting dragged here by Hange. Dinner was something to be savored in good company and the best company was his alone, in the quiet and comfort of his office. 

Yet here he was in the rambunctious mess hall, drowning in the noise and crowding of sweaty bodies. Because of the new rookies arrival, the higher ups gave permission to couple dinner with some booze. Levi had opted for tea instead - not the best, but better than the swill the military tried to pass off as beer. Cheap bastards, generally but they had more important things in the budget anyways. 

The four-eyed freak leaned over to loudly exclaim in his ear, “Don’t the rookies look so fresh-faced?!”

Yanking his head away from Hange’s offensive range, Levi considered her words, observing the rest of the mess hall. In his opinion, Hange was seriously misinterpreting the atmosphere. The new Survey Corps members were more somber than years past. And it was no wonder - these rookies began their training just after Wall Maria fell. The entire military had gained a boost in membership this year. So many civilians signed up following the massacre three years ago. Unlike in years previous, these rookies had seen the true destruction of the Titans.

Despite the celebrating of the veterans, excited for new meat, the rookies stuck to themselves based on region. Rookies from the Shiganshina District had the deadest eyes. They had seen for themselves the Colossal Titan peeking over Wall Maria. Rookies from the grasslands were still somber, but were most notable by the sun damage to their skin – tans, freckles, the like.

Good, Levi thought, taking another sip of his post-dinner tea. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to beat anyone into submission because they got cocky.

“Eh?!” A loud guttural noise echoed through the hall, followed by the yell of, “You’ve got to be shitting me!”

Levi rolled his eyes and nursed his tea some more. Gary was known to be loud and obnoxious, but this was especially loud. Idiot. The hall went quiet as Gary loudly stomped to the front. “Hey boys and girls,” he announced. “I’ve just been informed that the dead-last trainee from the southern division willingly volunteered to join our ranks. Let’s all say hi! Mulligan, get your ass up here!”

All eyes swung to the back of the hall as a young woman stood slowly. Levi noted with disdain that her uniform shirt was wrinkled but at least she held her head up high, despite the embarrassment. Her eyes drifted amongst the members of the audience as she walked up to the front, but she didn’t focus on any individual. She was clearly embarrassed, but too proud to not meet the critical gaze of the drunk veterans. Still, a scarlet flush heated up her freckled cheeks as she came to a stop next to Gary. He swung an arm around the girl and leaned in close.

“You know what we call dead-last rookies here in the Survey Corps?” he asked.

“No, sir,” the girl spoke softly but strongly enough that her voice echoed through the rest of the hall. “But I hope it’s clever, sir.”

Someone in the back chuckled. Gary shot the audience member a quick glare and then squeezed the girl against his side. “We call them Titan-chow!”

The entire mess hall erupted in laughter and the girl rolled her eyes. Over the laughter, Levi barely caught her response of, “Well, that’s significantly less clever than I had hoped.” Burying a smirk in his teacup, Levi turned away from the ruckus of the other soldiers and focused back on Hange.

The woman was all smiles as she chuckled darkly, “So fresh-faced.”

~*~

The next morning, Levi leaned back in his chair. He’d dragged himself to his desk just after dawn, having taken it upon himself to oversee the rookies assigned to clean the mess hall and had been draped over his paperwork since. His back gave a nice pop as he stretched back. The sun was firmly in the sky but no one was awake yet. It had been a long night for the other soldiers, apparently. Libations for everyone. Levi was grateful he’d escaped Hange’s grasp early enough to get a few hours of rest. Dealing with people for an extended length of time always seemed to wear him out far more than an intense training session. 

Levi was just about to return to his work when something appeared in the corner of his eye.

Right outside his window, a startled face stared back at him. Eyes wide, the girl lost her grip on the rope and dropped – disappearing from Levi’s line of sight.

He shot to his feet and stuck his head out the window.

His office was five floors up and overlooked a courtyard that functioned as a practice yard. The yard included weights and other miscellaneous equipment. Soldiers used the yard to stay fit and keep honed, so it wasn’t unusual for Levi to catch a glimpse of people working out. However, the yard included suspended ropes and were tied to a beam extending from the roof. They were suspended only about a foot or so from Levi’s office window, so all the other soldiers knew not to climb all the way up.

Luckily, the girl was hanging on for dear life a few feet down. If the girl had fallen all the way down, she would have been severely injured.

When she glanced up, Levi recognized her: the dead-last recruit. Levi hadn’t bothered to remember her name. Here in the morning light, sweat darkened her mousy brown hair and her freckles popped against her flushed skin. Beads of moisture rolled from her forehead down her face and dampened her ratty shirt. She gave him a shaky smile but Levi greeted her with a bored, stoic look. Now that he had confirmed she hadn’t fallen to her death, he was severely annoyed. With quick, precise movements, Levi shut his curtains and got back to work.

Dumbass recruits.

~*~

Three melodic knocks announced Hange’s presence. Levi glared at the door and debated pretending to be elsewhere. He knew why she was here. Socializing. She wanted him to socialize and actually interact with the new recruits before the expedition. He’d successfully avoided them for the last month and now his dear friend (frenemy, ward, perpetual annoyance?) wanted to throw him into the pit of snakes, so to speak. Absolutely not. 

“Levi…” Hange let out a low sing-song of his name.

Levi sighed loud enough for her to hear. Her only response was to knock harder and faster but still in the same rhythm of three melodic beats. That pattern haunted his dreams during what little sleep he did get. She wouldn’t leave him alone until he followed her to the party. It was a tradition and one Levi apparently was going to give in to.

Two nights before each expedition, the Survey Corps had a gathering. It was incredibly hedonistic, in Levi’s opinion. But at some level, he understood the need to blow off steam. Soldiers would die in terrible ways in a couple days. Might as well let loose now.

And let loose they did. It was not uncommon for soldiers to disappear for a few hours together and no one ever spoke of who disappeared with whom. Levi had no interest in partaking but Hange always managed to drag him to the beginning of the party. Levi always managed to sneak away, alone, before anything got too weird. He had had enough of debauchery in the Underground.

Levi instinctively reached for the uniform jacket he’d carefully hung up over his chair and then thought better of it. Of course, the cravat would remain. He threw the door open quickly enough that Hange was startled – mission accomplished.

“One. Hour,” he spoke coolly.

“One. Hour,” Hange mimicked. She chuckled deeply and stomped off, confident Levi would follow. And follow he did - at a hesitant, dragging pace. 

A few minutes later, music reached their ears. It was the sharp twang of a fiddle. Who knew how to play the fiddle? A new recruit? As they approached, it got louder and louder. Hange’s movements got more spastic as her excitement grew.

“Don’t go overboard,” Levi cautioned as they got to the doorway of the mess hall.

“I never do!” Hange exclaimed and bounced off to the table with the drinks.

“You always do,” Levi muttered to no one in particular.

“Captain Levi, sir!” A new recruit came bounding up to Levi, saluting him tensely. Levi looked the poor boy up and down. Farm boy – deep tan and earnest countenance, Levi quickly noted. “I just wanted to say that I am extremely honored to serve along side you, sir!” The alcohol was apparent on his breath but Levi resisted the urge to step back. So gross. 

Instead, he forced himself to reach out and clasped the boy on the shoulder. “Welcome to the Survey Corps, soldier,” he said.

The boy flushed even deeper and stuttered a bit, but nothing actually came out of his mouth. Ah yeah, hero-worship. It was something Levi would never get used it and really, he didn’t understand it. He was just a strong soldier. A really strong soldier. He killed Titans. No big deal. Hange appeared just in time, throwing an arm around Levi’s shoulders. “What’s your name?!” she shouted over the din of the crowd.

It took a moment for his eyes to focus on the crazy lady. “Kyle, ma’am! Kyle York!”

Hange chugged her drink in a quick gulp and smiled wide, “Kyle – care to freshen this up? And get one for Levi, here?” Kyle took her cup, nodding enthusiastically, and disappeared instantly.

“You know I don’t get drunk,” Levi reminded her.

“I think you pretend not to get drunk,” Hange shot back. “Oh! Oh! There’s the dead-last recruit!”

Levi glanced in the direction Hange pointed. Dead-last was dancing with another soldier, twirling to some fast-paced jig. Her moves were smooth, honed by years of using the 3D maneuvering device but the way she spun seemed awkward without a skirt. Levi still hadn’t bothered to learn her name. He did, however, know the name of the man she was dancing with. Jaime Halpert was a recent veteran – he’d survived three years of expeditions and was competent enough. Levi had been considering adding him to his squad two years prior but had ultimately chosen Petra to fill an unfortunate vacancy.

Almost as if she could hear Hange, dead-last paused and glanced over. When she saw Hange waving at her, she completely stopped dancing and Jaime followed suit, stumbling into her a bit. The way his hand lingered lower on her waist told Levi that maybe the stumbling wasn’t accidental. He’d bet money the two of them would disappear together at some point tonight. A smile broke out on his face and he dragged dead-last over to Hange.

“Joan, meet squad leader Hange,” Jaime said, pushed dead-last in front of him.

The drink was apparently hitting Hange quite powerfully. “Dead-last!” she repeated, clasping her hands. 

Joan gave Hange a tight smile and then noticed Levi. Her face dropped, she pulled away from Hange, and opened her mouth, blurting out, “I wasn’t trying to spy on you!”

Jaime glanced wildly between the two of them. “Uh, what?”

“She climbed the rope in the courtyard,” Levi explained succinctly. While the ropes were available, it was an unspoken rule that no one climbed them because of their positioning so close to the higher-ups offices. Well, it was probably a spoken rule because Levi was the only one who kept his window open to let in the fresh air and the lower-level soldiers were terrified of him. The rest of the officers in that wing of headquarters were heathens who apparently didn’t appreciate the cleanliness of a nice breeze. 

“Ah…” Jaime’s smile returned and he nudged Joan with his elbow. “Guess I should have warned you, huh?”

At that moment, Kyle returned with two cups brimming with alcohol and Levi took a huge gulp. “It’s fine. It’s not like you saw me taking a shit or something.”

Joan’s eyes widened and belatedly Levi realized as a new recruit, she wasn’t used to his way of talking. Too bad. Her face flushed deeply and an errant thought crossed Levi’s mind: she looked pretty blushing like that. Just as quickly as it appeared, Levi pushed it away. He was still a man but he was always a soldier first and she was a subordinate - and one that was currently hanging under a cloud of almost certain death, given her inexperience and lack of skill. She may look pretty with a blush but Levi knew he’d probably see her cheeks ghostly white in death before the first expedition was over.

“I’m going to uh, get another drink,” Joan announced and walked away. Kyle snuck into the circle of people, taking her place.

Jaime chuckled. “Awe, you embarrassed her. Didn’t think that was possible.”

“Oh?” Hange cooed. “How well do you know her?”

“We grew up in the same village,” Jaime explained. “That’s my future wife right there,” he announced, pointing at her retreating back. He rubbed a hand against the back of his head, ruffling his shoulder-length blonde hair. “She was my first kiss, you know?”

Hange shared a glance with Levi and they both silently acknowledged how intoxicated he was. Hange took another big gulp of her drink as if trying to catch up to his level. “We don’t know,” Hange said. “You should tell us.”

Levi rolled his eyes, but when he tried to back away and retreat, Hange grabbed his bicep and kept him in the circle. He almost pushed her off before she glanced at him with a dangerous glint in her eye and he remembered how crazy she was even just tipsy.

Jaime took a deep breath and his eyes glimmered. “Joan’s younger brother was acting like a dipshit so I chased him all the way from my family’s farm to his family’s farm. Barely got onto their land and suddenly Joan showed up. I forget how but suddenly she’s standing there, prettiest girl in the village, standing right there, and she tells me if I leave her brother alone, she’ll give me a kiss. That was too good an offer to pass up. She and I pucker up and our lips barely touch when suddenly she grabs me by the balls and squeezes. God, I thought she’d rip them right off. Then she leans in real close to my ear and tells me next time she’ll cut them off.” He sighed dreamily. “I vowed that day that I’d marry her.”

Levi scoffed. “I didn’t take you for a masochist.”

Jaime just sighed again. “Joan Mulligan is worth the pain.”

“Is it true that she was dead-last?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kyle supplied.

Hange watched the girl from the other side of the mess hall, tilting her head like she was observing an interesting Titan. “Why would the worst cadet volunteer to join the corps with the highest mortality rate?”

“Death wish,” Levi interjected.

“No, sir,” Kyle shook his head. “Joan got injured – her shoulder got pretty badly hurt. I mean, she wasn’t going to be top ten or anything even before that but her injury pushed her completely to the bottom.”

“How’s the shoulder now?” Hange asked.

Kyle shrugged. “I don’t know, ma’am. You’d have to ask her.”

“The shoulder is healed well enough that she can climb a rope up five floors,” Levi commented, watching her back as she poured her drink. 

“Sorry about that, captain,” Jaime said. “I hope she didn’t catch you shirtless. I don’t need any competition, you feel me?”

Joan turned around, drink in hand, and caught Levi looking at her. Immediately, she brought her glass up and chugged half of it, before continuing back. Ah, liquid courage.

“Nonsense,” Levi shot back at Jaime, shaking his head.

Joan returned to the group and Jaime threw an arm around her shoulders, hand dangling a little too close to her breast. “I will rip it off and beat you with it,” Joan told Jaime, a sweet smile on her face. Jaime returned the smile but dropped the arm.

“How’s the shoulder?” Hange inquired. Without comment, she held her empty cup out to Kyle, who obediently took it and left. Levi briefly wondered where Moblit was. Usually that was his job.

Joan rolled her left shoulder back in demonstration, “Much better, ma’am.”

“How’d you injure it?” Levi asked. “Doing something stupid?”

“My grapple was faulty and I hit my head against a tree branch, sir,” she explained. “I was knocked unconscious and fell a bit. Landed on my right side and dislocated my shoulder.” A dark looked passed over her expression. “I woke up, briefly. I told them not to try to pop it back in while I was unconscious. I knew they’d do it wrong.” She pouted into her cup. “They didn’t listen. Took twice as long to heal.” Then she took a big swig of her cup.

“Ah, someone else’s stupidity,” Levi said.

Joan lifted her gaze and gave Levi a sweet smile. Unlike the one she’d given Jaime, this one was all sweetness and no bite. “Yes, sir.”

Recognition slid across Levi’s mind. This girl seemed familiar. Levi glanced at Jaime. He knew Jaime had grown up in a farming village and if he and Joan had grown up together, that was also her hometown. He might not recall the name, but Levi knew he’d never been there. Especially not in his younger years. There was no way he’d have met her before. Maybe she just reminded him of someone.

Levi watched Joan from the corner of his eye as Hange’s refill arrived and Kyle made the mistake of asking her about her Titan experiments. Hange began to dominate the conversation and the new recruits politely nodded along.

~*~

He was watching her. Joan didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. She resisted the urge to squirm. Captain Levi was an unsettling man.

She’d only gotten a quick glance at him from outside his office window but it had still been an eyeful. Not necessarily the eyeful he’d joked about, though. He’d been leaning over, his black hair falling into his face as his eyes slid back and forth across the piece of paper in front of him. His lips had moved ever so slightly as he mouthed some of the words. In long fingers, he twirled a pen. Before Joan could comprehend that she was intruding, he dropped the pen and leaned back. His white shirt had stretched across his chest, tightly pressing against rigid muscles.

And then grey eyes met her blue ones and she lost her grip on the rope. In truth, his gaze had been so overwhelming that instinctively she’d tried to reach her hands out to ward it off. That intensity was gone though, when he’d gazed down at her, dangling a few feet below the window. Had it been so intense because he was startled? Caught unawares? Did he just naturally project that blazing energy and had to work to keep it contained? Regardless, a minute later, when her feet finally touched the ground, her heart was still pounding in her ears. She didn’t know if her trembling was from nearly falling five floors or looking him in the eye.

There had only been one other time that someone had made her feel this way with just one look.

~*~

The more Levi looked her over, the more his annoyance grew. This girl was clearly not from around here. Her shift dress was a light blue, not a single stain or tear. Her brown hair had been neatly braided down her back and tied off with a ribbon. The hands clenched up near her throat were topped with clean, neatly cut nails.

“Get up,” Levi commanded.

When she just flinched away again, Levi rolled his eyes. He hadn’t been trying to sound unkind and he really didn’t have the patience to coddle this girl. Quickly, before the girl could react, he knelt down next to her and clasped a hand to her shoulder. His grip tightened when she tried to pull away but when she realized she couldn’t escape his iron grasp, she remained still. Smart. 

Instead, she lifted her hand to cover her eyes and a sob escaped her. It was high and whiny and Levi sighed. Crying girls were his weakness. One of few but definitely the kind that made his stomach flip flop. Isabel crying was the absolute worst. 

“Listen, I’m not going to hurt you, okay?” Levi released his grip on her shoulder and awkwardly patted her on the top of the head. Kind of like a dog. If dogs in the Underground weren’t usually so filthy and flea-ridden. Isabel wanted a dog. Maybe he could give her this girl instead. The gesture startled her so much that she stopped crying for a moment. She looked up at him, big blue eyes still swimming with tears. Well, it seemed effective. So, Levi patted her head again and said, “You’re from the surface, aren’t you?”

The girl gave an intense sniffle, so powerful it seemed to pull the snot lingering near the opening of her nose straight back into her sinuses. Levi hid a wince. How fucking disgusting. Then, she nodded quickly.

“How did you get down here?”

“My daddy brought me,” she spoke softly.

Levi felt his heart restrict. Fuck. It was unfortunately common. When people from the surface couldn’t afford to feed their kids, dropping one of them off in the Underground was an option. Orphanages were hardly necessary when the city had one big human trash can right underneath it - already brimming with unwanted kids. Out of sight, out of mind. They’d tell friends and neighbors the kid had died and everyone would mourn. It wasn’t really a lie, because the kid would probably be dead soon anyway. Starved. Murdered.

As the girl wiped a hand under her eyes to clear away the tears on her cheeks, Levi knew where this girl would end up. She’d live. Not because she was a survivor. Not like Levi. She’d probably live into adulthood but she’d live in hell. She’d be a prize for the perverts in the brothel who wanted a pre-teen. Eventually she’d become a common whore. Just like his mother.

Levi glanced around, belatedly hoping someone would magically appear and scoop the girl up. They were alone.

Instead, he swiped a hand through his hair and said, “I need to meet a friend.”

A hand shot out and grabbed his sleeve. “Please don’t leave me!” she shouted.

Levi looked at her small hand, tightly buried in the fabric of his sleeve.

Fuck.

He was barely scraping by. He was so close to getting a place for him, Isabel and Farlan. No more overcrowded, filthy backrooms brimming with other thugs coming in and out. His own space… where he could keep it clean and orderly. A home. In all of his nineteen years, he never could have imagined he’d be this close to having a place of his own. 

“Please, mister,” she whimpered. “I’m scared.”

Abruptly, he yanked his sleeve from her grip and stood. He took two steps away from her, paused, and looked back at her over his shoulder. “I need to meet a friend. Don’t get in the way.”

The girl clambered to her feet and smoothed her dress back into place. Not a single wrinkle. Levi had to admit, whoever her father had been, he must have kept a spotless home. The Underground was going to be an adjustment for her.

When Levi kept walking, her soft footfalls followed him all the way across the city. He only heard her sniffle two more times.

~*~

Hange was bouncing in the saddle. Levi gave her a bored look.

“Is it too much to hope for a deviant?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“We didn’t see one last time,” she continued.

“You didn’t see one,” Levi reminded her. “I killed three.”

“Try to catch one next time!”

“Absolutely not.”

“I could learn so much!”

“Absolutely not.”

Commander Erwin pulled himself into the saddle. Levi had heard enough of his inspirational shouting – it got repetitive after a while, especially because he spewed the same shit when he was drinking. Instead he glanced around at the new recruits. Their quiet strength was refreshing. It was unfortunate how they’d come to gain it but Levi appreciated it more than the nervous jittering of the recruits past. These recruits had seen Titans in action. They knew what to expect. The atmosphere was heavy in a comforting way - a stable pressure. 

Levi’s eyes slid back a bit farther. Joan was looking at Erwin, but it was clear she didn’t hear a word the commander said. One of her hands was clenched up near her throat holding onto something. Levi couldn’t tell what exactly it was from that distance.

After the first half hour of Hange’s rambling two nights prior, Levi had abruptly turned and walked away. After surveying the rest of the gathering, he opted just to return to his office. It needed a thorough cleaning before he left on the expedition anyway. He had glanced back at the cluster he’d left one last time. Joan had met his gaze over Hange’s shoulder. “Help,” her eyes had screamed. Levi had allowed himself a single snicker before walking away. It was a right of passage. If they could survive Hange’s rambling, they could survive Titans.

~*~

Joan clasped the rings hanging from the cord around her neck. Fear formed a tight knot in her lower back but she just sat up straighter in the saddle. This was the moment she’d been waiting for. Three long years, training, preparing.

It was time to go home.

Jaime was two horses in front of her. Joan wondered how he felt. This was her first time outside Wall Rose since Wall Maria had fallen. Since her family had died. Since her world had shattered. Jaime had lost everyone as well, but he’d been outside Wall Rose before. She wished she had asked him about his experience before they set out on the expedition. It had seemed like a sore subject – for both of them.

It was easier to let him jokingly flirt with her and just… pretend like seeing each other wasn’t painful.

When Joan had first entered the mess hall after unpacking her pitiful possession in the women's barracks, Jaime had shouted her name and stomped up to her and lifted her in the air and twirled her around. It was joyous. A bit of home, a bit of happy memories. And then it had turned bittersweet. He’d set her down and pushed her short brown hair out of her face. He’d looked at her and he’d known why she was here. At least he’d chosen the Survey Corps because he’d wanted to go beyond Wall Maria and explore. Joan had joined in some futile hope to protect people, hoping to make up for not having been able to protect her family.

“Joan Mulligan,” he’d exclaimed, grabbing her face and squeezing. “You are most certainly a sight for sore eyes.” Then he’d frowned and grabbed handfuls of her hair. “You cut off all your long, pretty hair.”

Joan had just leaned in and wrapped her arms around Jaime’s waist, burying her face in his uniformed chest. She had convinced herself that if she breathed deeply enough, she could smell the crisp scent of home: a mixture of manure, musk, and grass. Hardly pleasant, but familiar at least. 

As if sensing her stare, Jaime turned and smiled. He gave her a quick wink, and returned to watching their commander. Shouting rang out and Joan snapped to attention. Time to go. She took a deep breath. Then, felt a prickle in the back of her neck.

Her gaze slid a bit to Jaime’s right. Captain Levi stared right back at her. The breath left her lungs for a second and then she gave a deep nod. It felt more natural than a salute.

He nodded back and then he returned his attention to the front.

Joan knew what they said. Dead-last. Titan-chow. Fuck them all. Let them think what they wanted. Let them say what they wanted. She had nothing to prove.

Her gripped tightened on the reins. Home.

And then her horse sprang forward just as the gate slid completely opened.

~*~

We built our own house, own house  
With our hands over our hearts  
And we swore on that day  
That it'll never fall apart


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics from Misterwives, again.

There you go, there you stay  
Keeping low, never wanna play  
Wandering far, disappearing  
Feet stuck in place, not moving

~*~

“Uh, Levi… Who’s the brat?”

“Long story,” Levi shot back. They met up outside the local tavern, lingering near the door just a bit. It was a good place to keep a look-out before they actually went in. Isabel was running errands on the other side of the city. 

Farlan looked between the two. The girl still lingered a few steps behind Levi, but she was growing bolder. She shifted foot to foot, skittish like a lost puppy. “… Are you keeping her?”

Levi sighed. “Who knows.” He turned around to actually look at her. If he observed her enough, maybe he could find a clue as to how to get rid of her. She met his gaze, blinking a bit. Then a large yawn burst out of her mouth and she stifled it was a little hand. 

She was, what, ten? Did ten year olds need naps? In the Underground, they certainly didn’t. At age ten, Levi had already killed his first man.

“Does Isabel need a little sister?” Farlan joked. 

Levi just leveled an even look at Farlan. Isabel referring to Levi as an older brother was a title he begrudgingly liked. But his appreciation for the reference was unspoken between the two men. It was a pride thing. Farlan knew better. 

“What’s your name, little girl?” Farlan asked. He took a couple steps towards her. Her eyes widened and she sprinted around him, threw herself at Levi, and buried her face in his chest.

Levi stared at the top of her head with an annoyed expression. Little hands gripped the front of his shirt. They were clean but they were causing wrinkles. 

“Seems like she’s a tad attached to you,” Farlan noted, chuckling. “Have you picked up a surface stray?”

“This brat is getting annoying,” Levi muttered, but he made no move to release her grip. Instead, he patted her on the head. She seemed to like that.

“What are you going to do with her?”

“No clue,” Levi frowned.

“I need to find my daddy,” she muttered into his shirt.

“Your father was the one who left you here?” Farlan asked, kneeling next to her and placing a gentle hand on her back. Farlan was better with people than Levi - especially kids. The man had a heart of gold and more compassion than anyone Levi knew. It bit him in the ass sometimes, but that’s what Levi was for - getting his ass out of the fire. She nodded into Levi’s chest but still didn’t lift her head. “Ah, then he’s long gone, little girl.”

“He is?” She glanced at Farlan finally. When tears sprung to her eyes, Levi shot him a look. Idiot needed to shut up. He was not dealing with her crying again. A headache was already starting to form right between his eyes, pulsing up and out. 

“Oh yeah,” Farlan nodded. “Parents who abandon their kids in the Underground don’t tend to stick around for long.”

“He didn’t abandon me!” she shouted. “I just got lost!”

“Oh boy,” Farlan sighed. “Kid, you need to face some facts – and the sooner, the better. The Underground is your home now. There is no way for you to amass the money to afford to get back to the surface and even if you could, you’ll have been declared dead by your family, so there will be no record of your citizenship and they’ll ship you right back here.”

“I don’t want to live here,” she muttered.

Farlan laughed. “No one does, kid.”

“My daddy didn’t abandon me,” she repeated. Her face was growing red - not from the tears that were still threatening to fall. Anger blossomed bright across her cheeks. The brat had spirit. “We came down here with vitamin D supplements – to give them to the people who get sick because there’s no sun. My daddy’s a doctor. He gave me some money and told me to go get food from a vendor we had passed. I got lost coming back.”

Levi and Farlan exchanged a look as Farlan stood. What kind of idiot let’s his kid wander around the Underground? No one, that’s who. The girl caught their expressions. She pulled away from Levi and kicked Farlan in the shin, causing him to yelp and stumble back, cursing about surface brats. “Stop! Stop it! He didn’t abandon me! I just got lost. Stop saying lies! My daddy would never do that!”

“Ah, kid,” Farlan muttered. He rubbed the spot where she’d kicked him. “Believe whatever you want but the sooner you admit to yourself that this is your new reality, the better you’ll survive.”

The girl sniffled and turned her gaze up to Levi. She searched his face, hoping he would say something different. Levi couldn’t help her – coddling her would only backfire later. She would need thick skin to survive here.

“Sorry, kid, but he’s right,” Levi told her.

Without prompting, the image of Kenny’s retreating back pushed it’s way to the front of his mind. It was incredibly vivid. Levi could still recall the dull ache in this side from where his mother’s pimp had kidney-punched him. The ache in his chest, realizing Kenny wasn’t going to be coming back, had been worse. 

Tears finally rolled down her cheeks. She gave an incoherent scream and headbutted Levi in the solar plexus. A whoosh of air left his mouth and he watched as she ran off.

“Well, that’s one way to get rid of your stray,” Farlan commented.

Levi nodded, as he rubbed the spot she’d headbutted. Part of him wanted to follow her. The other, wiser part of him knew if he tried to help every lost child in the Underground, he would never get out. More importantly - Farlan and Isabel would never get out. Dropping his hand from his chest, he glanced up at the ever-present ceiling. She was a pretty child, she’d grow into a beautiful woman, and beauty was a novelty around here. She’d be fine. Maybe one day she’d escape, too. Maybe get to the surface and find her family.

It was wishful thinking but so was most thinking in the Underground. 

“Let’s go,” Levi said, cooly. And the pair entered the tavern. 

~*~

Joan’s first Titan kill was a blur.

Her temporary squad leader had ordered her to shoot the flare and immediately he’d gotten snatched up. Joan had no idea how fast everything would happen. When her family had died, it had seemed like everything was happening so slowly. In her memories, the events were even slower. Joan glanced between the flare in her hand and her squad leader being lifted to the Titan’s mouth.

There was no choice.

Joan dropped the flare and shot a grapple up to the Titan. The Titan was over thirteen meters and had long straggly hair draped down its back. It made seeing the Titan’s nape more difficult and she was already at a disadvantage being on the flat surface of the field, but Joan kept her eye on the prize as she shot up towards it. Her blades flashed in the sunlight as she swung them down, biting into thick flesh. Perfect execution. The piece of flesh flew off and the Titan crashed to the ground.

Joan crashed with it.

The landing was jarring and she rolled with the impact. A flash of pain shot from her head to her lower back as her head made contact with something solid. Absently, she knew it was a head injury – and when she rolled to her feet and felt the gushing liquid, she knew there had to be a laceration. Hopefully not a fracture. Wouldn’t that be hilarious? Dying on her first expedition - not from a Titan - but from a brain bleed. Jaime wouldn’t let her live it down. 

She stumbled a bit, disoriented. There were three different decaying Titan corpses in front of her but objectively she knew she’d only killed one. Squinting, she focused on the most realistic one and the extras snapped completely out of focus and disappeared. Good. Then she caught sight of her squad leader rising to his feet and that made everything worth it. Sure, there were also three of him swimming around her vision and she knew she was probably concussed but… something in her chest loosened.

He and Joan shared a nod. And then they continued on. Joan spared the decaying Titan one last glance. “That’s for you, mom,” she whispered.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, at least for Joan’s side of the formation, and they made it to their first checkpoint: a former summer estate of some noble or another. When everyone took shelter for the night, Joan’s head was still leaching blood. It had slowed to a small ooze but Joan was beginning to feel the fatigue of blood loss. She pressed gauze to the wound in between setting up her bedding, hoping to stem the flow at least for now. Stitches would have been better, but she didn’t trust any of the other soldiers to do them right, especially on a head wound. If she could just clone herself, that would be perfect…

“Dead-last,” a cool voice startled her.

Joan turned to find a cluster of other soldiers – Squad Levi with the captain himself leading the pack. The cool voice matched his cool expression as he unbuttoned his cloak and draped it over a nearby chair before he approached her.

“I heard about your first kill – congratulations,” the captain said. “How’s the head?”

“Better, sir,” she replied. “Thank you.”

“That’s good.”

She didn’t see him move. Her first indication that he’d gone from walking towards her, to swinging his foot around and kicking her, was the shock of pain ripping across her face. Her body hit the ground hard and then Captain Levi’s foot swung up and then back down, right in her stomach. She folded up around the offending limb, her breakfast re-appearing as she vomited on the ground next to her. Coughing out the taste of bile, Joan prayed he’d give her a chance to recover. 

He did not.

The captain grasped her hair and pushed her head down, placing a hard knee right on her collarbone. She couldn’t breathe. For such a short man, Captain Levi must be ripped with muscle and he knew how to use that extra weight. Her wound blazed with pain as he made sure it was completely pressed into the hard stone floor.

Then the captain leaned down and spoke into her ear. “Dead-last, why did you join the Survey Corps?”

“S-sir?” she squeezed out.

“What is your reason for joining the Survey Corps?”

“I wanted to kill Titans,” she replied.

Captain Levi scoffed and his grip tightened on her hair. “You can lie to yourself, dead-last. But don’t lie to me.” He lifted her head a bit and slammed it right back down. Her vision went black.

“I…I want to protect people,” she finally admitted when her world clears and the captain came back into focus again.

Instantly, Captain Levi’s weight disappeared and he stood to loom over her. “Answer me this, dead-last: how many people can you protect from inside a Titan’s stomach? You might not know this, but they don’t shit so you’d be stuck in there forever.”

Joan tried to sit up but her vision swam too much. She fell back to the floor. It took her a moment to actually understand what he had asked. Joan tried to piece together an answer but his piercing eyes refused to blink. It was frightening and distracting. She opened her mouth, only to click it shut again. Surely this was rhetorical, but he’d specifically told her to answer and he didn’t seem to be going anywhere until she did so. He just wanted her to say the obvious answer as another form of humiliation, she realized with a blaze of anger. If she had more energy, more blood in her veins, maybe she’d have said something sarcastic. But she was just… too tired. “No one, sir,” she finally answered.

“Exactly,” the captain said, nodding. Then he knelt back down next to her. Joan winced at his proximity but he didn’t touch her. Mercifully. “The next time your leader gives you an order, you follow it. Even if following it means people die. Our mission is to protect humanity. All of humanity. Some people will invariably die. If you’re the one who dies, you can’t protect anyone else, let alone all of humanity. Accept that there will be sacrifices.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her up into a sitting position. “Do you understand?” he asked, inches from her face.

“Yes, sir,” she muttered. Honestly, she would have said anything to make him leave her alone.

Captain Levi grabbed her hair again, firmly but not roughly. He used his grip to move her head until he could see the gaping wound. Then, he released her and instead brushed the hair back a bit from the laceration. “You’re going to need stitches,” he told her.

“Probably,” she agreed. From the angle he had her head, she couldn’t see anything except his cravat and the bobbing adam’s apple behind it. It made her dizzy. If she strained her eyes a bit, she could see his mouth cut in a straight line. His hand stayed cupping her head and his thumb brushed gently, trailing close to the wound.

“Hange has a steady hand,” he explained. Then he pulled away and stood up. “You should also get off the floor, it’s filthy. And clean up the vomit. Gross.”

Joan glanced at the puddle. “Yes, sir,” she said. She didn’t look up, even as she heard his footfalls walking away and then the footfalls of his squad following.

“Joan,” Jaime’s voice reached her. He passed Squad Levi as he briskly walked towards Joan. “Are you okay?” He came to kneel at her side but she pushed him back.

“I’m fine,” she snapped. “Just… I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Fuck…” Jaime glanced between the puddle of puke, the head wound, and the black eye forming on Joan’s face. “Anything I can do?”

Joan wanted to cry. Joan knew she absolutely could not cry. Not here, not with all the other soldiers milling about - most of them pretending to be busy now that the beat down was over.. Instead, she counted to ten and took a deep breath. “Can you… Can you ask Hange if she would mind stitching up my head?”

A smile bloomed on Jaime’s face. “Of course – she’s the best.” And then he left.

Joan reached into her shirt and clasped the rings she kept there.

The captain was right – dead people couldn’t help anyone.

~*~

Levi was trying to plan his negotiation strategy. Farlan would want an actual plan. Levi’s usual plan was to go in, beat up the assholes, and get his way. But these 3D maneuver devices were very important. They would change everything. Levi, Isabel, and Farlan might actually have a shot at escaping the Underground if they got these devices.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts, he barely noticed the flash of blue out of the corner of his eye as he briskly walked passed an alley. But there was something so familiar about that shade of blue that he stopped and turned around. There – in the alleyway, the girl from a week ago was sitting.

As Levi approached, he realized she was asleep sitting up. Her brown hair had long since abandoned the braid and hung limp and greasy all around her shoulders, almost to her waist. The dress was dirty and she stunk. That was what a week in the Underground would do to a young girl.

He knelt softly, reached a hand out and used a single finger to brush a lock of hair back from her face. She was cold. Her eyes opened slowly. Maybe she wasn’t just sleeping – she seemed ill, despite the cool temperature of the Underground. Temperatures had dropped drastically in the last couple of days. Soon, those without shelter would freeze during the night. His eyes travelled down her crumpled form. When had she last eaten? As her gaze focused on Levi’s face, a small smile tugged at her lips.

“I remember you,” she said.

“I remember you, too,” Levi responded. “You’re a lot dirtier than I remember, though.”

She glanced down at her dress and then shrugged. “It happens,” she muttered.

Levi sighed. “When was the last time you ate?”

“Same day I got lost,” she recalled. Her eyes closed again.

A week. That explained her lethargy.

“The human body can go without food for three weeks,” she explained. “I have two more weeks to find my daddy.”

“You still think you’ll find him, huh?”

When her eyes sprung back open, they were full of fire. “He didn’t abandon me,” she insisted. “I know you don’t think so. I know your friend doesn’t think so. But I know my daddy. He’s a good man.” Her gaze dropped to her lap. “I’ve spent this week thinking about what you said… It just doesn’t make sense. We aren’t poor. My parents have six kids – I’m the oldest. If they were going to get rid of one of us, why would they pick the only one who could change diapers?” She shook her head, frowning. “My daddy loves me. I know he’s looking for me. I just have to find him.”

Levi glanced up at the mouth of the alleyway. He was meant to be planning, not helping delusional street kids. “Can you stand up?” he asked.

“I think so,” she replied and then tried to push herself up. When she just slid back down, Levi only hesitated for a moment before sliding a hand behind her back and another hand under her knees. He lifted her up and set her on her feet. She swayed a bit to the left and lifted a hand to her face. “I’m dizzy,” she said.

“Yeah, not eating for a week will do that,” Levi replied. Her arms instinctively wound around her body as she continued to shiver. Levi removed from around his neck the scrap of fabric he had been using as a scarf and instead wrapped it around the girl’s shoulders, tying it in the front with a neat knot. Then, he turned around and knelt. “Hop on,” he ordered. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hooked her legs around his waist. Her head drooped forward, forehead pressed to his shoulder near the crook of his neck. A long tendril of brown hair slid down Levi’s chest, tickling the bare skin on his arm but he made no move to push it back. 

No matter where the girl ended up, she’d need to cut it. If she stayed on the streets, she’d have to worry about fleas. If she was picked up by the local brothel, she’d have to worry about… other creatures that liked to crawl through hair. What a shame, Levi had an errant thought. It was beautiful hair. Highlights from the sun streaked through the brown, creating a fascinating dimension. Eventually that would fade, here in the Underground. Levi hoped it didn’t. 

Levi took her to a street vendor that sold jerky. Most of it was rat meat but she needed something calorie-dense. And it was protein. The vendor knew Levi well enough not to comment about the girl on his back. Instead, the vendor dutifully handed over the jerky and Levi passed it up to the girl. Then, Levi headed in the direction of his small apartment. At this time of day, no one would be home. Which was a good thing. Isabel would guilt him into keeping this stray.

She damn near swallowed the jerky whole.

Levi winced, “You don’t have to eat it like a filthy pig. Didn’t your doctor daddy teach you manners?”

“This is so good,” she mumbled around the jerky. Her loud chewing was right in his ear.

“If you don’t slow down, you’ll choke,” he warned.

“If I choke, I’ll probably die happy,” she shot back. Once it was gone, the girl licked her fingers. Then, she leaned over and kissed Levi’s cheek, before wrapping her arms more tightly around him. “Thank you!”

“Knock it off,” he muttered. “Your breath smells like rotten jerky.”

“Oops!” Despite his admonishment, he could feel the girl smiling into his shoulder.

~*~

Joan forced herself not to scratch at her stitches. The itch crawled all the way down to her neck and she shook her head trying to shake off the unsettling feeling. Her mind needed to focus on what her feet were doing.

After Hange had sewn Joan’s head back together, other soldiers had come looking for Hange’s help. Joan had volunteered, explaining that she knew incredibly too much about medicine and that she was a pro at stitches. None of the patient needed stitches though - there was just bad bruising and one patient with a pretty unique injury. He’d been thrown by a deviant Titan and had some bad ground-rash up his back. The skin was puckered and oozing. There wasn’t much anyone could do except clean the wounds and let them breathe, Hange had decided.

It had been years, but Joan still knew how to make a soothing paste. It worked better on burns but the concept was almost the same. While the medical supplies provided by the military had enough of what Joan needed to reduce the swelling, there was still a plant she required to numb the burn a bit. Fortunately, the estate was right next to a river and the plant was known to grow near water. Which made sense - Joan needed the juices inside the stem and such a plant required an abundance of water. She could make the paste without the juices, but it wouldn’t be as effective.

Joan maneuvered near the shore, trying to watch her feet, look for the plant, and keep from lighting her hair on fire from the torch she carried. The ground was wet and the stones made it uneven. The main estate building was still in sight and the sun had long set, so Joan wasn’t too worried about Titans. Didn’t stop her from wearing her 3D maneuvering equipment. Almost as if to remind herself it was there, she patted it. Like a baby’s blanket, this equipment. 

“There you are,” she murmured to herself, catching sight of the tell-tale star-shaped flowers and kneeling to pluck it out of the ground.

“There who is?” a voice came from behind her.

Yelping, Joan shot to her feet, wildly waving the torch on instinct. A steel grip encased her wrist, keeping her from apparently burning Captain Levi alive. At the sight of his annoyed face, shadowed in some parts and blazing from the firelight in others, Joan tried to take a step back, forgetting the river behind her and the man who held her wrist in front of her. She slipped, but before she could begin to fall, the captain used his leverage on her wrist to instead pull her forward. 

The torch fell from her hand, fizzling out against the wet sand just as Joan fell up against Captain Levi’s hard form. Joan was two inches taller than him, a fact she had never actually believed because the infamous soldier always seemed larger than life. Here, now, Joan was pressed completely up against him, one wrist still caught in his grasp at their sides, the other clenched in the fabric of his jacket. And they were eye to eye, breath intermingling for just a moment before Joan tried to step back. She found she couldn’t. 

At some point Captain Levi’s other arm had wound around to rest on Joan’s back. His arm was like steel around her. 

“If you step backwards, you’ll fall in the river,” Captain Levi reminded her as he released her and took his own step back. Joan could finally breathe. 

To keep herself busy, Joan looked around for the torch. It was completely out and probably wouldn’t be able to be relit. It didn’t seem that Captain Levi had brought a torch, either. How could he maneuver in the darkness that easily? 

“What are you doing out here?” Joan wished she could call back the question back as soon as it left her mouth. She wanted to stuff it back down her throat, even if she choked on it. She’d even forgotten to call him “sir.” What a dipshit. 

“Don’t question your superiors, dead-last,” was all he said. He leaned over and picked up the discarded torch. “This is useless now,” he noted. “What are you doing out here?”

“I was collecting an herb I need, sir,” she explained. In the cool of the night, here cheeks were slowly cooling down and her mind was back on track. 

“For Cleo?” 

Joan was surprised that he knew that. She squinted in the darkness, trying to see his face. “Yes, sir.”

“Then you should collect it,” he said simply.

Nodding, Joan turned back towards the shore, glad to have something to do. For some reason, she felt like even though she couldn’t see him, he could see her. He was so unnerving. Joan closed her eyes, hoping to adjust her eyes to the darkness. After a moment, she opened them and her vision was slightly better. The crescent moon was a smidge too small, still. Back home, they’d done everything according to the size of the moon - harvests, planting. The bigger the moon, the better. Beyond the wall, the opposite was true. The less light, the less likely Titans could sneak up on them. Tomorrow, when they travelled to the most dangerous area they were exploring, it would be a new moon. 

Kneeling down, she felt around for the plant. Instead, she got a handful of mud. She just couldn’t win, could she? Taking a deep - and what she hoped was a quiet - breath, she continued to feel around until she grasped some foliage. No, that was river grass. A few feet over, and finally she found it. Mentally, she pictured Cleo’s back - he’d roughed up a huge section. She’d probably need a bit more. So, she kept crawling. 

“Are you scared of me, now?” Captain Levi asked. 

… Where had she heard that before? A memory pushed it’s way around her mind, but failed to make it’s way to the front. 

Instead, she tried to form an answer - one that was as honest as possible and still re. “No, sir,” she responded. “You were right, sir. I let my personal feelings override my duty.” Mentally, she added, And I’d do it again if it meant saving my squad leader. Sir. 

A crunch sounded behind Joan, startling her. Had she said that last part out loud? “I did hear your technique wasn’t bad.” 

Unbidden, a smile tugged at Joan’s lips. “Are you trying to compliment me, sir?” 

“Don’t be silly, dead-last,” he answered coolly. 

“Alright, that should be enough,” she announced, standing. When she turned around, she noted the vague outline of the captain but couldn’t make out details. Behind him, the estate was illuminated. So, at least, she wasn’t lost. Joan had always feared that: getting lost. Not knowing where she was. 

But despite knowing where to go, it was still going to be quite the experience making her way back. At least, without tripping. 

“Can you make it back okay?” the captain asked. 

Joan wondered if he could read minds. Suddenly, his superior pokerface made sense. Then she wondered about the answer to his question. “I should be fine,” she finally decided. 

Captain Levi was quiet for a moment and then he reached out and grabbed her wrist. “I’m not going to be responsible for your death if you wander off, disoriented with blood loss,” he said with a bored tone. “Or that concussion I probably made worse,” he tacked on, reluctantly. 

He gave a quick tug and got her stumbling after him. Joan tried hard not to trip over any roots or divots in the ground. If she fell, she’d bring him down with her. Or maybe not… if her brief groping of his chest was any indication, the man had a core like steel. What a weird turn of events, Joan wondered. A couple of hours ago, she killed her first Titan. An hour ago, Captain Levi was bashing her head into the ground. And now she was being led by the wrist by the same man. 

His hand was warm and Joan half-heartedly wished she wasn’t wearing her jacket. She wanted to feel his hand on her bare flesh.

And… she shut that train of thought down solidly. 

“Are you scared of me, now?” he’d asked. 

No… his reputation, as told to her by Jaime, left quite a lot to the imagination - but one thing was certain: while the man was violent and awkward, he routinely put himself on the line to protect his team members. He probably wouldn’t hurt her… too badly. Mild maiming, at the worse. He even sounded a little remorseful about banging her open wound into the floor. 

More than anything, Joan decided, she was confused by him.

~*~

Where to fly? Who knows  
Winds rapidly blow  
From branch to branch you go  
When you see the sun dear friend let it glow


	3. Chapter 3

I need a hero   
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night  
He's gotta be strong  
And he's gotta be fast  
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight

~*~

They were almost to Levi’s place when a group of five thugs appeared in front of them, blocking their path. Levi knew exactly when they recognized him – at least two of them took a small step back. The other two just exchanged a look. And the final guy, the biggest of the men, with a heavy stomach and heavy arms, seemed oblivious. 

“What do you want?” Levi asked.

“The girl,” replied the biggest asshole. Of course it was the biggest asshole. It was always the biggest asshole.

The aforementioned girl tightened her grip on Levi’s neck. Any harder and she would choke him.

“What for?” Levi asked, subtly adjusting the girl’s grip. He would probably need to put her down before he could properly fight.

None of this made sense. Brothels were generally against forced work, unless they were the ones that got their whores from slavery. The debauchery in those places was even worse. The kind of things no one was willing to do, even to keep from starving. Slavers would probably want the girl - with her sun-kissed hair and her bright eyes. She would be a novelty that would only increase in value. But these guys didn’t look like slavers – they looked like common thugs. And the thugs who worked for the slavers tended to be better dressed. More dangerous. These guys were too thin, too dirty. Who the hell were these guys?

“We want the reward,” the biggest asshole explained.

“What reward?”

The big asshole cracked his knuckles. “If you don’t know, why should we tell you?”

“Duke, this guy is Levi,” another thug spoke up.

“So?” Duke rolled his shoulder to loosen it up.

“So I’m a nasty motherfucker and you probably should walk away if you want to live,” Levi shot back.

“Should we run?” the girl whispered into his ear. Levi gently removed the girl’s hands from around his neck. She slid down to the ground.

Levi turned, cupped the back of her head in a loose grip, and coolly replied, “I don’t run.”

When the first guy rushed him, Levi noted it wasn’t the biggest asshole. Interesting. When Levi knocked him straight to ground hard enough that his whole body bounced on the pavement, Levi noted the girl had been smart enough to step back. When all five thugs were eventually on the ground, moaning, bleeding, or crying, Levi noted that the girl was watching him with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

“Are you scared of me, now?” Levi asked her, retrieving a cloth from his pocket and wiping some blood spatter from his face.

Mutely, she shook her head and then ran at him. Levi barely had a chance to widen his stance so he didn’t get tackled when she threw her arms around him. “You are the coolest person ever,” she mumbled into his chest.

Levi hesitated for only a moment and then gently cupped the back of her head. “Stop talking nonsense,” he muttered. Then he softly removed her and walked over to the biggest asshole. He gave the thug a swift kick in the side. “What reward?” he asked.

The man grunted. “Some guy from the surface was looking for a brown haired, blue eyed, girl wearing a blue dress. He offered a reward.”

The girl approached and whispered in Levi’s ear, “Ask him if the man had long brown hair and a moustache.”

“What did the man look like?” Levi asked, punctuating the question with another kick.

“Tall. Brunette.”

Levi kicked him again. “What about facial hair?”

“I think he had a moustache,” the man groaned.

“Daddy!” the girl shouted before taking off. Levi shot a hand out and grabbed her wrist before she could get too far.

One final kick and the thug told them where the man was staying. Levi knew the area - it was a rich part of the Underground. Well, rich by the Underground standards. It was littered with hotels, inns, and brothels meant for surface clients travelling in Underground to get their fix of things that were illegal on the surface. Levi kept his grip on the girl’s wrist but quickly led her to the section of the city.

“I told you!” the girl exclaimed in a sing-song. “I told you, I told you!”

Levi watched her from the corner of his eye as they travelled. Despite how exhausted she had been earlier, it seemed this new information had rejuvenated her. Tall, brunette, with a moustache. That could be any number of men from the Underground or the surface - it didn’t mean they’d found her father. Briefly, Levi wondered... Had a rich and greedy pig caught sight of the girl and set a reward so the thugs would do the dirty work of finding her? Was he leading her to slavery or a life of misery? Even though Levi was the one leading, the girl stumbled ahead, all smiles and laughter. 

No, Levi decided. If this was a setup, he would protect her. He wouldn’t let this girl waste away in a brothel or at the beck and call of a slaver. What came afterwards… he didn’t know. Mentally, he divided his, Isabel’s and Farlan’s weekly earnings - could they afford to feed another? Maybe he could teach the girl pick-pocketing? She’d make more money as a sex worker, but he didn’t have the heart to watch her do that, even if it was her choice. 

When they turned a corner and entered a town square, they were confronted with a large crowd milling about. Lunch rush. Levi scanned the crowd - this was where the big asshole had said he’d spoken to the tall, brunette, moustached man. He leaned down to the girl, “Recognize anyone?”

Her eyes shot around and around, taking in all the faces. And then, it was like a candle had been lit in a dark room: her entire expression brightened. 

“Daddy!” she screamed.

Yanking her dress up to her knees, she ran into the crowd. Levi tried to grab her, but she was already lost in the throng of people a moment later. 

“Fuck,” he muttered, moving to follow her. But, he had already lost sight of her. Normally his height worked to his advantage: people underestimated him, miscalculated his age, he was faster. But once in a blood moon, Levi wished he was taller. This was one of those days. If he had a few more inches of height, maybe he could see where she’d gone. 

He was about to say, “fuck it” and start punching his way into the crowd when a blur of blue appeared above the crowd. Levi caught sight of a tall, brunette man lifting the girl into the air and twirling her around. When the man twirled her in Levi’s direction, he saw the moustache. The girl hadn’t been wrong: her family wasn’t poor. The man was well-dressed and held himself like a man used to getting his way. Not like how Levi was used to getting his way, though. Levi punched. This man could afford not to. 

All the dark thoughts Levi had had while travelling there came tumbling down. From the joy on her face, she knew this man. Well, the girl had been right. Her daddy loved her. She was going back to the surface.

Levi sighed, turned, and walked back into the pits of the Underground. 

~*~ 

The girl held onto her father for dear life. 

“I was so worried about you,” her father said, smoothing a hand down her back. 

“I was okay, daddy,” she assured him. “There was a boy - oh!” She squirmed back a bit to look around. There - the boy was walking away. His hands were in his pockets, his head down. “Wait - wait!” she shouted. She needed to thank him. 

When her father put her down, she tried to take after him. Her father grabbed onto her arm, though. 

“Don’t run off,” he scolded, not unkindly. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you again.”

“But, I need to thank him,” she mumbled. “He saved me from bad guys and he gave me the best jerky I’ve ever had. I… I don’t even know his name.”

Her father clasped her shoulder. “I’d like to thank him, too, for looking after you. But... It seems like he doesn’t want to be thanked. We should respect that.”

“But why?” she asked. 

“I don’t know, honey,” he admitted. “Some people just do good things because they’re able to - and someone needs to do them. Simple as that. Not because they want recognition or thanks.”

For some reason, the girl felt like crying. But that didn’t make sense - she’d found her father. She was going home. 

As her father clasped her hand and lead her towards the staircase, the girl looked back at the Underground. She thought of the boy. A young man so bright didn’t belong in this kind of darkness. She stopped for a moment. 

“Goodbye, mister,” she said. “And thank you.”

“Joan.” Her father tugged at her hand. “Come on, let’s go home now.”

It wasn’t until they had reached the surface that the girl realized she still had his scarf tied around her shoulders. 

~*~ 

Levi had surprised himself when he’d grabbed her wrist. He immediately wished he could drop it. Maybe he felt a little guilty about roughing her up? Maybe he’d enjoyed having her pressed against him? Levi tried to count back… when was the last time he’d had a woman? A couple months, maybe more? Fuck - had it been a full year? 

Too long, was the actual answer. 

It was the only reason he could think of to explain why he was so fixated on this seventeen year old. 

Years in the Underground had made his eyes sensitive in the darkness. He expertly stepped around all the hidden obstacles. Periodically, Joan would stumble a bit. Levi just kept walking. It was a soldier’s pride thing - he wasn’t going to coddle her. When they came into the illuminated doorway of the estate, Levi forced himself to release her wrist and step away from her. In the torchlight, Levi got a glimpse of his handiwork: a darkening blotch of blue and black and purple right across her cheek, swelling the underside of her eye. 

Earlier, after leaving Joan to clean up her vomit, Levi had helped his squad debrief and assign lookouts. Not ten minutes afterward, Hange had come stalking in.

“What the hell, Levi?!” she’d exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger. 

“Stop shouting,” he’d coolly replied. “I can hear you just fine.”

“Then hear this: Stop knocking around the new recruits!” Hange had huffed. 

Levi had known exactly who Hange was talking about. When Levi had heard that Joan, dead-last rookie, had disobeyed orders, he’d volunteered to talk to her instead of her squad leader. The squad leader had explained that he didn’t think he could truly impress upon Joan the need to follow orders because her disobedience had saved his life. He’d warned Levi that she had hit her head, but she seemed to be fine. 

After he’d pinned her, she had spewed some bullshit about killing Titans. Levi had slammed her head down and Joan had passed out for about thirty seconds. When she had finally opened her eyes again, Levi had felt his chest untightening. Then, when he’d helped her up, he’d seen the extent of damage to her head. The wound was bad. And he’d definitely made it worse. 

Levi had realized with shocking clarity that Joan seemed fine because she refused to complain about it. From the bloodstained gauze on the floor next to them, she had been bleeding a significant amount. 

To be fair, if he had known about the injury, he probably still would have roughed her up a bit but he’d have kept the blows to neck-down. 

“Did you stitch her up?” was all he’d asked Hange.

Hands on her hips, Hange had said, “Yes. Do anything to rip them open and I’ll be back with the commander.” And then she’d stomped away.

Yes, he decided - he felt guilty about roughing her up. That was all. 

“Thank you, sir,” she nodded and saluted him. She turned on her heel and then...

“I’ll come with you,” Levi said. He instantly wanted to take back those words. He met Joan’s startled gaze and struggled to find an excuse. “I want to make sure you don’t screw him up, dead-last.” Yeah… that... sounded plausible. Briefly, he glance around to make sure none of his squad was nearby. They alone were capable of seeing through him… sometimes. 

Joan frowned. “Both my parents were doctors,” she explained. “I know my shit… sir.”

Levi shrugged and walked passed her. After a moment, he heard her follow him. Most of the other soldiers were asleep. Levi rarely got sleep on expeditions. Even behind the wall, he was infamous for only catching a couple hours at a time. The new recruits were probably going to have a hard time, tonight, he had realized. He glanced around as Joan started cutting up the plants she’d collected. Even now, there were soldiers sitting up, staring off into space. Levi knew they were replaying the events of today - they had lost two soldiers. Modest losses, but the expedition wasn’t over. That was why, when he’d seen Joan leaving the estate, lit torch in hand, he’d followed her. A soldier shouldn’t be alone like that right after battle. Especially not one he’d pummeled into the ground. 

Settling down against the wall, Levi watched Joan work. Cleo was in and out of consciousness. They’d dosed him up so he could sleep. Currently, he was out but Joan murmured under her breath. Levi couldn’t make out what she was saying but whatever it was… it was comforting. Had she learned that from her doctor parents? 

Her hands were sure as she mixed the ingredients together. The paste was a disgusting brown color as she reached into the bowl to begin smearing it on his back. Levi frowned, nose wrinkling ever so slightly. “Are you sure that won’t kill him?” he asked. “It looks unsanitary.”

~*~ 

Joan had almost forgotten he was there. Now that she glanced up at him, she couldn’t figure out how she could ever just forget his presence. Those grey eyes still rippled through her like an electric current. But then, as she looked down at her patient, she got lost all over again. There was something about the pungent scent, the feel of the thick paste, as she reached a hand in and pulled some out. 

The last time she had made this concoction… 

“It hurts!” 

“I know, Sammy. Just a few more minutes.”

“It stings!”

“That tends to happen, sweetie, when you touch hot things.”

“I didn’t know it was hot!”

“And now you do… Okay all done, let’s get this on you.”

“Wait! Will it hurt?”

“No, sweetie. It’ll only feel better.”

“Are you sure you did it right? Maybe we should wait for mom...”

“I did it just how mom does.” 

There had been a beat of silence. 

“...Okay. Just do it quick, okay?”

“Smart choice, Sammy-baby.” Joan had reached out and ruffled her baby brother’s hair. She could still feel his soft curls under her fingertips. 

And then - another memory pushed it’s way forward - that same hair, matted with brown blood. That was all she’d been able to find… the very top of his skull, half a brain still sitting nestled in it. But she would know that beautiful hair anywhere. All her other siblings had their father’s brown hair - Joan included. Sam had their mother’s ginger hair… like a vivid sunset. Under all that brown blood… it had looked so wrong... 

“Joan?” a voice reached her. Warm hands on her shoulders, on her neck, her cheek. The bruised cheek burst with pain and suddenly she came back to the present. 

“Yes, sir?” spilled out of her mouth before she realized how close he was. His face was inches from hers, his hands cupping her face. His expression was bored, as always, but his left eyebrow was raised ever so slightly. It was the only indication she had that something had concerned him. 

Once she blinked enough, her brain cleared and the captain seemed to recognize that she was back to herself again. He pulled away and stood. “Are you done?”

Joan glanced at Cleo’s back. The paste was distributed evenly. She didn’t remember doing that. A cloth was shoved in her face and Joan absently took it and stared at it.

“Your hands, you idiot,” Levi scoffed. 

Oh... they were covered in paste still. Frowning, she wiped her hands clean and hesitated to hand it back to the captain. His obsession with cleanliness was well known in the Survey Corps. She didn’t know if she should offer to clean it first. 

“Just keep it,” Levi gestured a bit toward it, long, tapered fingers twirling. Then he nodded his head off to the side. “You should get some rest.”

Joan followed his nod and looked at her bedroll across the room. “I don’t think I’m sleepy just yet, sir. Are you?”

There was a pause so long Joan looked back up at the captain. His expression, as per usual, was inscrutable. Finally he shrugged. “Follow me.” Then he turned on his heel and walked away. Joan struggled to keep up, despite being taller. “Is something on your mind?” the captain asked as they reached a side door. Captain Levi opened it to reveal an overgrown garden. 

At one point in time, this place had probably been pretty. But without the proper care of humans, it had gotten overrun. The greens had taken over. Joan fingered a flower hanging overhead. Yes… it might have been pretty once but now it was simply beautiful. She wondered how her family’s farm had survived in the past three years. And very quickly, she skipped over her next couple of thoughts about what had been left at the farm house. 

She forced herself to remember the captain’s question. “Why did you join the Survey Corps, sir?”

The captain leaned against a garden wall, arms crossed. He looked like he was settling down for a long conversation but Joan knew he was hardly a chatty person. “The better question would be why did I stay in the Corps, to be honest…” He trailed off, gazing up at the crescent moon overhead. 

“What do you mean?” Joan took a seat on a bench nearby.

“I was forced to join the Corps,” he explained, simply. 

“Is that even legal?”

A ghost of a smile appeared on his face. It was so subtle Joan figured it was must have been the poor lighting. “Nothing legal about it. To be fair, I was given a choice: be handed over the military police or join the Survey Corps.”

Joan sat up straighter. “You were a criminal?!”

Levi rolled his eyes. “Everyone in the Underground was a criminal,” he explained. “That was the choice: die or survive by crime.”

There was something pressing against the back of her head - maybe a thought, maybe a memory. “You… you were from the Underground?” she asked, frowning. In the darkness, she tried to get a better look at the captain’s face. Maybe they had crossed paths when she had been there. Another thought then occurred to her: maybe he knew the boy who had saved her. 

Seven years was an eternity for a seventeen year old. She remembered bits and pieces… a pale neck, the flavor of smoked meat, and a boy who towered over her. But other details had been lost to time. She’d never learned his name. Or his friend’s name. She always figured she would know him the instant she saw him again. But her mother found out about Joan getting lost for a week in the Underground and had put her foot down: her husband could go back. None of her children ever would. But Joan dreamed about the day she could see her hero again.

The captain opened his mouth to answer but another voice interrupted. “Joan, are you out here?” 

~*~

Jaime appeared on the balcony above them. Levi hadn’t even realized there was a balcony. Sloppy.

“Yeah!” she replied, jumping to her feet. Jaime looked between the two of them, a small line appearing between his eyebrows. 

He shook his head a bit and then remembered his manners, “Hey, Captain Levi, sir!” 

Levi raised an idle hand in greeting. Then, he pushed himself off the wall and announced, “I’ll leave dead-last in your capable hands.”

As he walked away, he overheard Jaime comment, “I thought I heard your voice, Joan. Hang on, I’m coming down.”

“No, no,” Joan responded. “I’ll come up. My bedroll is up there anyway.”

And then Levi moved completely out of earshot. Good. He rarely talked about himself and he most certainly never talked about the Underground or his past in it. To the world, he was Humanity’s Strongest Soldier. To the Survey Corps, he was their dependable captain. What the Survey Corps knew about his past included vague rumors that had trickled down between veterans to new recruits since Levi had first joined. As time went on and the veterans who had personally witnessed Levi, Isabel, and Farlan join the scouts died, the tales had only grown. Levi gave up trying to follow them long ago. 

Yet… he’d told her about his deal with Commander Erwin. If the conversation had continued, would he have told her about Isabel and Farlan? 

Frowning, Levi made his way towards Commander Erwin’s room. The master bedroom was apparently a perk of being the boss. Maybe some strategy-talk would get his head twisted on straight. 

~*~

It was just as Levi had anticipated: day two was bloodier than day one. At least two deviants had wreaked havoc on the left flank. They didn’t have a body count yet. When a rider came from the south, Levi silently hoped it wasn’t more bad news. 

“Regroup at the castle Knox!” the rider shouted over the galloping of the horses and then she continued to the next grouping.

Shit, it seemed like Erwin was cutting today short. Exactly how many people were dead?

When they arrived at the castle, Levi got his answer. At least ten, Levi estimated from the throng of people milling about. Some were missing. Five were critically injured. When they entered the main hall, the worst were lined up in a neat row. Hange and Joan were hovering over the one on the far end. The metal scent of blood reached his nose and he glanced down at the soldier lying prone on the ground in front of him: Kyle York had lost a leg. 

“Sir?” Petra prompted. Levi assigned two of his squad to look out, the others to handling the provisions. Then he went to find Erwin. 

“How bad?” was the first thing out of his mouth as he came to stand next to the commander, surveying his battered troops.

“Fourteen dead,” Erwin told him. “That second deviant was less interested in eating people and more interested in kicking horses. We have too many injured to keep going - we will stay here for the night at least. See if we can save some of those five,” he gestured to the line of bodies. 

“Rookie York looks bad,” Levi commented, vaguely.

“He won’t live through the night,” Erwin agreed. “Hange took a quick look at him and hasn’t been back. She’s more concerned about Gus. Broken rib,” he explained. “Too close to the lung, apparently. They think it’s going to collapse.”

At that moment, Joan looked up. There was a streak of blood on her cheek but it wasn’t steaming. Human blood. Then, she said something to Hange, stood, and walked over to the commander and Levi.

“He’s bad,” she told them. “But he’s fixable.”

Erwin stared down at her. Levi watched her gulp. 

~*~

There was something about Commander Erwin that always freaked her out. Despite his good looks and noble presence, he always seemed like something was brewing on the inside. A little bit of crazy. Which was fair - anyone choosing to lead a bunch of people straight into this kind of hell had to have a few screws loose. She’d trust him less if he was completely sane. 

“What do you need?” he asked. Cutting right to the chase.

“Supplies we don’t have here,” she said, giving him the same courtesy of being direct. “His lung was definitely pierced by the broken rib. It’s slowly collapsing. He has a few hours before it completely deflates and then an hour or so before he suffocates to death. We need to perform surgery.” When Erwin didn’t say anything, she glanced at Levi. Both just stared back. An unpleasant thought wiggled it’s way into her brain. Surely they wouldn’t let him die…? “He needs surgery or he will die,” she reiterated. 

“You said that,” Levi noted, coolly. 

She glanced between the two of them again, up at Erwin’s looming face and down to Levi’s bored expression. 

“We can save his life,” she said. Maybe if she said it enough they would listen. 

“It’s too risky,” Erwin finally decided. “We have hours before the sun sets. If we retreat after dark, it’ll be too late. A lone squad might be able to make it back to the wall, but they would be too vulnerable for too long. Too much could happen between here and Wall Rose. We left a lot of Titans back there.”

“We’re in castle Knox, right?” 

“Should I draw you a map?” came Levi’s detached reply. 

Joan shot him a look before she could stop herself. The life of this man was more important than military hierarchy and all the bullshit that went with it. “I know of a place closer than the wall - only a couple kilometers - and it will have the supplies we need.”

“Home,” came a voice from behind her. She turned to find Jaime standing there, hands on hips. His expression was curious with a huge undercurrent of disapproving. “You really think your parent’s clinic would have the stuff you need?”

“I know they do,” Joan replied. “No one has been there since the wall fell. It’s not like the Titan’s pillaged it.”

Jaime frowned. “They might not have pillaged it, but they might have crushed it.” Her heart restricted at the thought of her parent’s clinic reduced to a pile of rocks. “You can’t expect a squad to risk travelling there only to dig through rubble.” 

“He will die,” was all Joan said. It was all she could say. It would have been enough for her parents - they were never the sort of people who were capable of withholding help if they had the means to ease someone else. They would do anything in their power to save another’s life. 

It was what had gotten them killed. 

And Jaime’s look seemed to say he knew exactly whose sentiments Joan echoed now. Joan turned completely to him, forgetting the captain and commander for a moment. 

“One, the structure of that clinic was doubly reinforced after the tornado of 839,” she said, holding one finger up. “Two,” she lifted another finger. “If the clinic was destroyed, my parents also had enough supplies at our house to performed the surgery.” Another finger jutted up. “Three, between here and there is the Elsan forest, which will make Titan fighting easier.” One more finger, “Four: the distance is only ten miles, tops, making the trip less than an hour total.” Another finger, “Five: he is going to die.” Joan realized she was out of fingers and dropped her hand with a huff. “Six: we can save him!”

As she spoke, his expression grew darker and darker. “I know this is your first expedition and you’re a little naive but -”

“My squad will oversee the recovery mission,” Levi cut in.

Joan whipped around, having forgotten he was there. His expression was so completely neutral, it was like staring at a porcelain mask. And then the words sunk in. She looked to the commander, who continued to study Joan. “Alright,” the commander finally agreed. “Rookie, you will act as their guide. I want you all back here within the hour. We will not send a rescue.” 

Joan nodded quickly.

“Refill your gas before we go,” was all Levi said before walking away, presumably to assemble his team. 

They met at the front gates. As Joan approached, adjusting a strap on her shoulder, she realized Jaime was squatted down next to Levi and the rest of their group, looking at something on the ground. He was fully suited up as well. 

“We should approach from here,” he said pointing. As Joan got closer, she realized they were looking at a map. “We can get more height from the surrounding buildings.”

“Agreed,” Levi muttered and they all stood. 

“You’re coming?” Joan asked. 

Jaime shrugged, sheepishly, “I haven’t been home yet. Seems like we should go together.”

“I’m not doing this just so I can go on a stroll down memory lane,” Joan snapped. 

His expression dropped. “I know you aren’t. You’re too much like your parents.” And you’ll probably die just like them, was left unsaid. 

Squaring her shoulders, Joan swung into the saddle. Captain Levi trotted over. “Why did you volunteer?” Joan asked him before she could help herself. “You beat my head into the ground for almost the same thing. Now I’m dragging other people into it.”

Levi stared back. “I beat your head into the ground for disobeying a direct order from your commanding officer and performing unnecessary heroics. And you’re not dragging other people into this, I am.”

A breeze swept over them and tousled Levi’s hair a bit, but that was the only indication that he wasn’t frozen in time. He didn’t blink. He didn’t swallow. He just… stared right back at her as she studied his face. Sometimes his eyes looked like wet stone - shiny but impenetrable. If she didn’t watch her step, she’d slip and come crashing down. Other times, his eyes looked like a well, bottomless and ominous. Far too easy to get trapped down there. Right now, they were something else entirely.

“Captain?” Petra asked. “On your orders?”

“Move out,” the captain said, adjusting his reins and leading their squad onward. 

~*~

I need a hero  
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light  
He's gotta be sure  
And it's gotta be soon  
And he's gotta be larger than life!  
Larger than life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics by Bonnie Tyler.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics courtesy of Blackmore's Night.

Dancing in the moonlight  
Singing in the rain  
Oh, it's good to be back home again  
Laughing in the sunlight  
Running down the lane  
Oh, it's good to be back home again

~*~

Joan was fine up until they broke through the thick forest and she caught sight of the vague outline of her village on the horizon - familiar and cramped. Maybe this was a mistake. She had never thought she’d be back this soon - or ever. She had in fact reconciled herself to never seeing this place again. Every thump of her horse’s gallop brought her closer to the setting of her worst nightmare. She reached up, into her shirt, and clutched the rings there. The metal was warm from her body heat, her own heartbeat echoing in the metal. 

It calmed her. 

When she glanced up and to her left, she noted Jaime didn’t look any more at ease than she felt. 

She felt bad for dragging him into this. Looking around at the rest of Levi’s squad - Petra, Gunther, Eid, Oulo, Clare - she felt even more guilty. And then she pictured Gus lying there, his breath slowly getting wetter and wetter. 

“Poor babe,” her mother would have murmured, stroking his forehead. “We’re gonna fix ya right up.”

As they came closer, the building came into focus. She recognized the baker’s shop, the cobbler’s shop, the butcher… It was startling. She realized she couldn’t picture their faces anymore. The metallic scent of cattle blood was still stinging in her nose, but the sweet burly man’s face was gone. Closing her eyes tight, she called to the front of her mind her family - mother, father, too many siblings. Those faces she could picture. But for how long? After another three years, would they fade too? 

“Stay sharp,” the captain’s words reached her, even over the galloping horses and even though he didn’t even bother to raise his voice. She glanced at him, startled and his narrowed gaze told her that he knew her mind had walked a little too far into her memories. 

“Yes, sir,” she responded. 

She banished her thoughts just as they got within range of the buildings. 

“Advance upwards and follow Joan’s lead!” came Captain Levi’s order. 

As a group, they grappled the buildings and swung up. Joan landed lightly on her feet and took off again - next building, next building. The village beneath her blurred and she was glad for it. Most of the village people had evacuated, though they’d been attacked in-route to the wall. If there were bodies still decaying below, Joan didn’t want to see them. God, everything looked so different up here. Another hundred feet and… they landed in front of her parent’s clinic. 

“Is this it?” Captain Levi asked. At Joan’s nod, because she didn’t trust herself to speak, he ordered, “Gunter, go with Joan. The rest - fan out like we discussed. Keep an eye out.” 

This time, she kept her memories sealed nice and tight. The familiar double doors were unlocked and Joan pushed them open without hesitation. The smell hit her so fiercely she had to take a step back. Two rows of cots lined the walls on either side. Three of the cots held festering corpses, more bone than body. 

These were the people her parents had died for. The wall fell and the village was evacuated. Her parents had waited until the last second, because these people had been bedridden and the wagon had been full. They were supposed to come back for them… Joan and her small horde of siblings had been loaded into another wagon. That convoy had gotten attacked on the way… A squad from the Survey Corps had arrived in time to save only a handful of people. None of her siblings. Not a single one. 

Joan had been carried off, screaming. 

“Joan, Joan!” someone was screaming in her face. A few blinks later and Jaime’s face came into view. She tried to form words but couldn’t. Instead, she focused on the way his eyebrows were almost non-existent. He was so blonde that his eyebrows were lighter than his tanned face. The combination was comical. Joan tried to focus on just how hilarious it looked instead of remembering the Titan that crushed her two year old baby sister in its hand and then licked her body off its palm. 

“S-sorry,” she finally got out. Her nose crinkled at the scent of the room as it hit her again. Slowly, she came back to herself and avoided the squad’s disapproving gaze. “Everything we need should be in the back room.” And then she pulled herself out of Jaime’s grasp and walked forward. Shoulders squared, focused on the swinging door in the very back. 

It was second nature, maneuvering around the room. Her hands instinctively opened drawers and cabinets as she piled the necessary supplies on a nearby table. When Gunther followed her into the backroom, she pointed to the table. “We’ll need these,” she told him. 

“Roger that,” he responded. Then, he shoved them into a bag. “Anything else?” 

Joan looked around the room. There was one thing missing. “Hang on, I can’t find a stethoscope.” Then, she went to the next room over. Big mistake. This was her father’s office. For a moment she was blindsided. Way too many memories. 

Taking a deep breath, she caught sight of where she had been sitting when the horn had sounded and the village had been alerted that their nightmare had become reality. She had spent an obnoxious amount of time in her father’s office, plowing through anatomy books and diagrams. Her father even let her use his microscope. 

Thinking quickly, Joan packed a couple books, her father’s stethoscope, and… with a small smile, her fingers grasped a scrap of grey fabric. At some point, it had been black, probably. And the letters K and A had been embroidered on it in white thread but now the embroidery had come mostly undone and what was left was dingy off-white. It was the scrap of fabric her Underground hero had wrapped her up in. When she was young, she had rarely taken it off. She shoved it into her bag, slung it over her shoulder and headed out the door. 

“Got it,” she told Gunther. 

And they regrouped with the rest of the squad.

~*~

When Joan emerged from the clinic, Levi was pleased to note she wasn’t nearly as pale as when she’d gone in. Good, she needed her head in the game, especially with the incoming Titans. 

“Two from the south, one from the east,” Clare reported. 

“Do we run?” Joan asked, readjusting her bag across her body.

“I don’t run,” Levi shot back, shooting a grapple. “Clare, Eid, take the east - everyone else, south.” The last thing he saw before shooting up was Joan’s face. Her eyes were wide, her head tilted.

Levi swung towards the nearest Titan, Gunther appearing in his peripheral vision. Petra was right behind and Jaime took up the rear. Where was Joan? Too late to care. As Levi grappled onto the Titan, swinging in a wide arch, blades flashing, Joan swung up onto to the other Titan. A quick slice and dice later, and Levi dropped to the nearest roof, instinctively shook the blood from his blades, and turned. 

“Shit,” he muttered, as he caught sight of Joan narrowly missing getting snatched by the Titan. It had long, spindly arms, huge hands, and fast movements. A deviant? Then, Joan got yanked back. Had the Titan grabbed her grapple? No… the strap of her bag. 

She screamed, struggling to untangle herself from the bag, and the sound shot through Levi. But he didn’t hesitate. He swung up, around, and sliced the strap before she got too close to the thing’s mouth. She dropped and rolled onto roof. Petra came from above, cutting a deep groove into the Titan’s neck.

“Two more from the east!” Gunther shouted, at the same time Eid yelled, “Clare!” The sickening crunch was all Levi needed to know. 

“We are retreating,” Levi announced. “Time to go.” 

As they began to retreat back to the horses, Levi caught sight of Joan. Fuck. The girl only had eyes for the red blob that used to be Clare’s lower half. Her breath was uneven and her blades were rattling, she was trembling so hard. Levi stomped over and slapped her across the face as hard as he could. Her body fell flat onto the rooftop but when he came to loom over her, she blinked and the light came back in her eyes. When he reached a hand down, she took it without hesitation and allowed him to yank her up. 

“My bag -” she began, but Levi cut her off with a look. 

They left the village behind.

~*~

“You know what would help?” Hange asked. “A stethoscope. What kind of clinic doesn’t have a stethoscope?”

Joan frowned down at Gus’s prone body, but her hands didn’t miss a beat. “It got lost.” When Levi had cut her loose, her bag had fallen to the ground. She’d been unable to retrieve it. 

“His pulse is getting a little too slow,” Hange noted. 

“How slow?” 

Hange gave her the number and Joan’s frown deepened. “It’s the blood loss,” she explained.

“How much longer?” 

One quick calculation, and… “Two more minutes.”

Hange nodded and readjusted her glasses. “He’ll survive that long.”

Joan wasn’t willing to risk it though. She sped through the rest of the procedure and stitched him up as quickly as possible. The stitches weren’t as even as she’d like and the man would definitely have an angry scar, but it was over and he would probably live. And then she stumbled over to her bed roll. 

When darkness took her, she didn’t know if it was exhaustion or blood loss. 

~*~

“We need to go! Now!”

“They’ll be back with more wagons, soon.”

“We don’t need wagons, let’s just run.”

“Joan, these people need the wagons.”

“I don’t care about those people, dad! I care about you and mom and -”

“These people have no one to care about them, except us. We will not abandon them.”

“If we stay here, we will die.”

“And if we leave, and leave these people here, how can we live with ourselves? Do you understand?”

The voices faded out of Joan’s dreams and she blinked in the darkness. As dreams about her past went, this was not the worse one. There was no screaming involved, so she considered it a win. Taking a deep breath, she sat up and the events of the day before came crashing down on her. It was almost enough to make her fall back down and pull the blanket back over her head and not come out. But it was still dark out and her nerves were strumming. Sleep wouldn’t come back, so she might as well get to work. 

In the three years since Wall Maria fell, the Survey Corps had stockpiled extra gas, food, and other necessities in various places around the countryside similar to their stockpiles outside the wall. They kept these supplies in a separate room on the upper floor and Joan made her way up there. At some point the place had been a library was more windows than walls. The theory behind storing everything here was that if they needed a quick exit, they could break the windows and grapple out. As she approached the last stair, she heard the clanking of someone else who apparently had the same idea she had. 

Captain Levi was busy refilling tanks. 

Exactly the man she didn’t want to run into. It was too late now, though. He would have surely heard her footfalls. 

When he glanced up to see who had entered the room, he nodded to her dispassionately. “You can start from the other side.”

“Yes, sir,” she murmured and got to work. Eventually the silence between the two of them got to be too much - at least, it seemed that way to Joan. His neutral expression was akin to a porcelain mask, telling her nothing about his thoughts. “Sir…”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Captain Levi said, simply. Joan glanced over at him but his face told her nothing. He had stopped working though, so at least she knew this conversation had his attention.

Joan dropped the tank onto the floor. “What should I not apologize about, sir? Losing focus repeatedly because I let myself get distracted by memories? Freezing so badly you had to slap me silly? Insisting on going on this mission in the first place? Getting Clare killed?”

“If you don’t stop talking, I’ll slap you a hell of a lot harder than silly,” Levi said, coolly. 

Biting her lip, Joan stared at the ground. “Fine,” she said. “No apologizing.” When she looked back up at him, she knew her eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “Can I ask a question instead?”

Levi shrugged and got back to work. “You just did.”

She blinked at him. It was the closest thing to a joke she’d ever heard him make. Who knew the infamous captain was capable of situational humor? She almost commented on it before she remembered her question. “Was it worth it?” she wanted to know.

“You mean… was attempting to save Gus’s life, and ultimately saving Gus’s life, worth losing Clare’s life? We all make choices, dead-last. We can never know how they’ll turn out.” For a moment, he stopped what he was doing and glanced up at the moon through the huge wall of windows. The moonlight made his eyes a pale grey. “Sometimes we choose right, and it all works out. Everyone comes back safe. Sometimes we choose wrong, and everyone dies. There is no way to predict what will happen but choices need to be made. You didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t know what would happen. I really don’t know what to tell you.” He turned his intense gaze to Joan. “Except...I will tell you that Clare volunteered. Everyone from my squad did. I gave them that choice. She wanted to help Gus. She wanted to help humanity. You were willing to risk your own safety to save Gus. You did everything in your power to help, and for Gus it paid off. For Clare, it didn’t. But that wasn’t your fault.”

He held her gaze for just a moment longer and then asked, “Do you still have that handkerchief I gave you?”

“Uh…” she trailed off, reaching in her pocket and retrieving the muck-stained cloth, now tarnished brown as the paste oxidized. “Yes?”

“Good,” the captain nodded, and turned back to work. Over his shoulder he commanded, “Wipe your face and get back to work.” 

Hesitantly, Joan touched her cheeks to find them wet. Great. She was crying in front of a superior officer. A famous superior officer. Quickly, she swiped at her face with harsh strokes until it was dry, shoved the cloth away, and diligently got back to work.

After a few minutes, she spoke again. “Sir, can I ask another question?” When all he did was stare back at her blankly, she realized her phrasing. She rolled her eyes and a ghost of a smirk appeared on the captain’s face - and then it was gone. “Why did you agree to oversee the mission?”

“I made a choice,” was all he said, not even pausing in his work. 

“Cryptic,” Joan shot back before she remembered who she was talking to. 

“I have to give the other soldiers something to gossip about like little old women.”

For the first time this expedition, Joan smiled. She watched the back of the captain’s head for a few moments as he deftly filled a tank. There was definitely something familiar about this man. She just couldn’t quite put her finger on it. 

~*~

When you play with fire  
Sometimes you get burned  
It happens when you take a chance or two  
But time is never wasted  
When you've lived and learned  
And in time it all comes back to you...


	5. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics by Celtic Woman.
> 
> Friendly reminder - this fic is rated mature for a reason. We're gearing up for some naughty-times.

Fill the glasses one more time  
And never heed the empty bottle  
Turn the water into wine   
And turn the party up full throttle

~*~

The expedition ended. They paraded into the city amid the judgments and heckling of the crowd. Levi kept his eyes forward and his back straight, as per usual. These pigs had no idea what it was like beyond the wall. Their opinion of him was inconsequential. When they reached headquarters, Levi quickly rubbed down his horse, gave her food, and headed back to his office. 

His stack of paperwork would be significantly taller this time around because he’d lost a squad member. Clare’s family was from the north. He’d have to notify them. There was a boilerplate letter some squad leaders used - Levi refused. Instead, he wrote a couple pages of what the fallen soldier had accomplished. He didn’t want their families thinking they’d died for nothing. With Titan’s still plaguing the land outside the walls, it was hard to believe any of the deaths moved them closer to saving humanity… But Levi had to at least try to convey that in his letter. 

Slowly, his pile diminished over the next couple of days. He stopped periodically for rest, tea, food, the toilet and some minor tidying-up but he avoided other people. It was a post-expedition ritual for him. Which was why Hange knew better than to be pounding on his door before dinner about a week after the expedition ended. 

“Surely you have your own paperwork to do?” he asked through the door. 

“I took a break,” her voice came from the keyhole. She must be pressing her mouth against the knob. Disgusting. 

“Take a break somewhere else,” he ordered, crossing his arms. 

“Come to dinner,” she whined into the keyhole. 

“Absolutely not, four-eyes.”

“Come. To. Dinner. Socialize. Be an inspiration to the rookies.”

When he yanked open the door, Hange spilled into the room, face-first. She popped back up and readjusted her glasses. “Does this mean you will go?”

“Tch. Long enough to eat.”

“What else would you do at dinner?” Hange laced her arm with Levi’s and led him out the door. Her allowed himself to be dragged. She could be scary when she was this pushy. This, too, was a post-expedition ritual. 

“Get stuck listening to your drivel about Titan research, which gets more incomprehensible the more you drink,” Levi reminded her. 

“Hmph!” Hange tried to pout, but a wide smile broke out across her face instead. 

They reached the dining hall and Hange led him over to a table including Gunther, Eid, and Mike. She plopped him down and disappeared. He brushed his hair back into order and calmly waited for Hange to return. Like clockwork, she appeared, balancing two plates and a two drinks. She handed him a beer and a plate. They dug in and made idle chit-chat. It was… comforting to be surrounded by people. Levi needed his alone time but sitting here, listening to the soft buzzing of the crowd, watching his friends laugh and joke was… nice. 

His eyes slid around the room as he took a sip of his beer. Kyle Monk had lived. He was permanently crippled and would never go on another expedition, but he refused the discharge the military had offered him. He planned to help the Survey Corps from behind the walls. It was commendable. Jaime was sitting next to Kyle, an arm slung around Joan. He had a beer in his hand and was gesturing wildly with it. Joan took a sip of her beer and laughed. 

The dining hall lighting was dim but Levi could see the flush on Joan’s cheeks. He wondered how many beers she had had before that one. Or… was she blushing? 

No… he decided, as she gently shrugged off Jaime’s arm. She was drunk. Tipsy, at best. 

Joan glanced up and caught him staring at her. It took way too much restraint for him to hold her gaze and not glance away like he was doing something wrong. When she smiled and waved, he nodded back to her. 

“The rookies are going dancing,” Hange said in his ear. He hoped she hadn’t seen that exchange.

Instinctively he leaned away from her, trying to escape her beer-breath. “So?”

“We should go,” Hange suggested. “Right, everyone? Let off some steam?”

“There are other ways to do that, Zoe,” Mike commented. 

“Eh,” Hange made a face. “Why not do both?”

“Debatable,” Gunther intejected. 

And then a shadow appeared above Levi. He turned but Joan was looking at Hange. “Hange! Are you coming?” 

“Absolutely!” Hange jumped up. “I should change, though, right?” she asked, twirling and gesturing to her uniform.

“Yeah, we are wearing civil clothes,” Joan said. Then, Joan’s smiling face turned to Levi. “Captain Levi, we are all going into town to go dancing. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Do you want to come?” 

The word, “No,” was right on the tip of his tongue. And then Joan lifted a hand and pushed some stray bang behind her ear. It was surely an innocent gesture but… her blue eyes glowed in the dim light and her flushed cheeks washed out her freckles so her skin glowed. Fuck. 

“Not for too long,” he finally said. 

He heard a choking noise behind him and he really hoped it was Gunther or Eid so that he could punish them for it later. But no, it was Mike. And when the rookies disappeared to apparently change into civilian clothes, Mike leaned over the table and took a deep inhale through his nose. “I smell… lust,” he joked, raising his eyebrows high.

Levi punched him straight in the nose, feeling the cartilage crack under his knuckles. Then he left. 

Civilian clothes… he pondered in front of his small wardrobe. He kept things simple - it was a habit from his homeless days. Clothes should be functional and easy to clean.

A loud knock followed by Hanges voice permeated through the door. Levi was getting deja vu. “You decent?” she asked. 

“Why are you here?” Levi asked, unstrapping his uniform. 

“Making sure you didn’t get cold feet, is all.”

“I’m changing,” he said, simply. After the straps were undone, the rest of the uniform came off easily enough.

“Ew, then I’ll stay right here.” There was a moment of blissful silence, then, “Hey, you aren’t wearing your black suit, are you?”

Levi paused, one foot in the pant leg of his black suit. He almost didn’t dignify that with a response, choosing instead to pull the pants up and fasten them. “Yes, I am.”

“Agh, at least don’t wear the jacket or cravat,” Hange suggested. “You’ll look stuffy. Dancing needs clothes that can move.”

When Levi opened his door, he was without the jacket and cravat and frankly, felt naked. But not nearly as Hange had to be feeling… Gone was her standard ponytail. She let her mahogany hair fall down her shoulders. The dress she had on came to mid-calf, revealing smart loafers and had long flowing sleeves. It would definitely move with her on the dance floor. Levi tried to remember if he’d ever seen Hange’s ankles before… 

Suddenly, she pushed a hand through his hair and tousled it a bit. “Effortless,” she breathed. “Let’s go!”

Thankfully, this time she didn’t grab his arm. She must not want to spook him. 

When they reached the front gates, Levi almost stopped and turned back. The group was so large and consisted mostly of rookies. Then, he noted Petra, Gunther, and Eid and figured that at least they were tolerable. Worst case, he could talk with them.

Why had he even agreed to this, he wondered. Oh right… a pretty girl asked him to and his libido had done all the talking. Where even was she? He caught sight of Jaime first, since the man was at least two inches taller than anyone else in the group. As per usual, Joan was standing at his side. Levi couldn’t see what she was wearing, but she had styled her chin-length brown hair the same way she always did. Very no-nonsense. 

“You’re going to dance with me, right?” Hange asked. 

“Only if you get me drunk enough first,” he shot back.

Hange gave a big smile and wagged her finger at him. “I know that’s a trick - you don’t get drunk.”

The group started moving and Levi was saved from answering her. 

~*~

Joan twirled a bit too hard, stumbling a half-step before Jaime caught her and twirled her back the other way.

“I’m getting dizzy,” she shouted into Jaime’s ear over the sound of the fiddle. 

“You’ve had a bit too much to drink,” he told her. “I’ll get you some water.” He twirled her right off the dance floor, grabbed her by the hips, picked her up, and plopped her onto an empty barstool. She wasn’t the only one who had had too much to drink. His hands had been wandering all night but Joan couldn’t bring herself to ask him to stop. Smoothing the skirt of her dress, she smiled at the memory of Jaime giving it to her. 

“I take all the rookies dancing after an expedition,” he’d explained the night before her first expedition. “Most other soldiers come, too. After everyone has healed up and taken some time to mourn our fallen comrades - we get shit-faced and dance until sunrise to celebrate life.” He’d put the box in front of her. “I know your trainee allowance is pretty small and you haven’t gotten your full-fledged Survey Corps allowance yet. So, if your pride won’t let you consider this a gift, we can just call it a small loan.”

When she had opened the box, her heart had soared. She hadn’t owned a dress since Wall Maria fell and it was just her style: a simple periwinkle dress with a fuller skirt that fell a bit past her knees. There was subtle white embroidery around the collar and at the hem. Nothing too flashing - a nice, earthy cotton. 

“Thank you, Jaime. I love it and I promise to pay you back. But… If I die on the expedition, you’ll have wasted your money,” was all she had said. 

“Consider it a reason to live.”

Joan fingered the edge of the hem, following the pattern of the embroidery with her thumb. 

“Oi, you’re wearing a dress,” came a voice next to her. 

Captain Levi looked at her from the barstool next to her, his eyes wider than she’d ever seen them. Not obscenely wide, but for such an expressionless person he almost looked… shocked? As much as he was able, at least. 

It took a moment for his comment to work it’s way through her brain. She hadn’t even realized Jaime had plopped her down next to him. Did her dress offend him? Was he surprised she even owned a dress? Was he… trying to make conversation? Was that an… attempt at a compliment?

Through the drunk fog of her brain, all she could think to say was, “I’m also wearing undergarments, socks, and boots.” And then she smiled, hoping that was the kind of answer he was looking for. 

It was subtle, but his eyes got wider. 

~*~

Why had that come out of his mouth? He’d been debating leaving when suddenly a blur of blue appeared in the corner of his eye and Joan spun into his line of sight. Jaime had grabbed her and lifted her onto a stool and left. She was… a vision. Her hair was a little damp from all the dancing, sticking to her face. Her entire face was scarlet, the color leaking down her neck and collarbone. The bodice of the dress clung to her torso, revealed a chest he didn’t know she had. Did she bind it when she was in uniform? Her waist was clenched in and the full skirt billowed around the stool. As she admired the hem of the dress, her eyes glowed. 

There were so many things he’d wanted to say and there were so many things he could have said. “You look okay, dead-last,” would have been acceptable. “You clean up nice, rookie,” would have been better. “That dress looks good on you,” even would have been better than, “You’re wearing a dress.”

The moment that comment came out of his mouth, he wanted to take the pint glass in his hand and smash it over his head. It would have been less painful. 

And then she had said… what she had said… and all Levi could do was picture her in undergarments and standard military boots and nothing else. Seriously… where had those breasts come from?

He struggled for a moment for something to respond with but Joan plowed on, “Do you like it?” She hopped off the stool and spun around, smiling. “Jaime bought it for me as a present for surviving my first expedition.” Then she stopped spinning, grabbed her stool, and tugged it closer to Levi. “Speaking of the expedition - thank you.” She hopped on the stool, but leaned over and grabbed his free hand in both of hers. “I didn’t tell you that, did I? No - I didn’t. So, let me say it now: Thank you, Captain Levi.”

The hands cradling his were warm. It was disconcerting, the way that warmth was worming its way up his arm but at least the conversation was back in a realm he could manage. How many times had he been thanked for his service?

“No problem,” he said, coolly. 

Her grip clenched and she leaned even farther forward. Instinctively, his gaze fell to her cleavage for a millisecond before returning to her flushed face. “So do you like it?”

“What?” His eyes narrowed. Had she seen?

“My dress, silly!” 

But before he could say anything, she slipped off her stool and stumbled almost face first into his lap. She caught herself with a quick grip on his upper thigh, saving her from falling into a particularly dangerous area. But still, her hand fumbled a bit and Levi jumped up, grasping her forearms to steady her as he righted both of them. 

~*~

Why was he so handsome? He seemed like a statue in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the tavern. So out of place. His lips were still wet from his pint of beer and she wondered if he would taste like hops. And when he blinked, his eyelashes were clusters of midnight against porcelain skin. His hands on her forearms were exactly as she’d imagined them… a series of callouses that tickled the thin skin near her wrists. Warm like a pleasant campfire… steady licks of flame in the night breeze. 

And goodness… his thighs were like steel. If she hadn’t seen her hand physically grasping his leg, she would have thought she’d caught herself on the bar - he was that solid. Was the rest of him just as hard?

“Sorry,” she mumbled, somehow remembering that touching a superior officer within a couple inches of their naughty bits was considered a bad thing. Levi still didn’t release her though. This emboldened her to ask, “Hey, do you want to dance?”

The captain glanced between her face, the dance floor, and then down at his hands on her arms. 

Only then did he release her. Her face fell and suddenly the full impact of what she’d done hit her. Had she really just asked the famous captain Levi, Humanity’s Strongest Soldier, to dance in a seedy city tavern? 

Joan glanced up at the captain, fully expecting a harsh rebuke. Maybe a punch. And when he lifted his hand, she would have bet her monthly allowance she was about to be slapped. Instead, his hand landed, palm down, on the top of her head and he… patted her head. “Stop talking nonsense,” he said. 

That phrase made her straighten her spine as if someone had pulled all her strings at once. But before she could say anything, he had already turned around and disappeared into the crowd. 

“Did you grope the captain?” Jaime asked from behind her.

“I think I did,” Joan admitted, grabbing the glass of water from him. Fuck.

~*~

On the walk home, Joan’s head started to clear a bit. In place of the fog was the beginning of a pounding headache. 

At some point, Jaime had put his hand into hers and they strolled back to base, hand-in-hand. It wasn’t unpleasant. Joan even kind of liked it. But it didn’t feel the way the captain’s hands had. Enjoying the silence, Joan wondered why she would make that comparison. Or even, what the use was? The captain was like a mythical figure, up in a tower, completely unreachable. Jaime was here. Jaime was home. Jaime wanted her. 

The men in the village had wanted Joan’s mother. She had been a petite woman with ample curves and a halo of glowing red curls. She had also been the youngest child of Clive Mulligan and the only daughter after seven sons. One night, when she was braiding Joan’s hair, Joan had asked her why she’d chosen Joan’s father, a city man from far away, when she could have had any boy in the village, according to her uncles. She’d told her, “They didn’t want me, child. Not truly. What they wanted was to claim a pretty prize. My father and brothers were well respected by the village and protective of me. To get my affection was to somehow usurp their possession of me. Your father…” Her hands had stilled at that moment. When Joan had turned around, her mother was staring out the window, a giddy little smile on her face. 

The kind teenage girls wear when talking about their crush. 

“Mom?” Joan had asked.

“Your father looked at me and saw a healer first, a person second, and a woman third,” she had finished. 

Joan had scrunched her nose. “Wouldn’t you want to be a woman first?”

“No, child. I was a woman and a person by happenstance of my birth. But I was a healer because I loved the healing arts. I built my life around them. Your father challenged me and supported me but most importantly - he respected me as a healer. And that formed the foundation of our partnership.” She’d touched Joan’s cheek then, cupping it in a hand that was coarse from how many times she washed it in a day. “Find a man who sees you for who you are.”

As the stars winked down at her, she wondered if Jaime saw her for who she was. 

She glanced at his profile.

He had known her since she was a little girl. Like all the other boys, he’d chased her in the fields and pulled her hair until she’d begged her uncle Jasper to teach her to fight. They had played chicken in the local creek and he had snuck her her first beer when she was twelve. He had volunteered to go on the mission into their home village, even though he’d fought her on it at first. Surely that meant he respected her as a soldier first, a person second, and a woman third?

“Hey,” Joan said, pausing in the road and tugging Jaime to a stop. “I didn’t thank you for the dress.”

He laughed as he turned around, “I’m pretty sure you did, Joanny.” 

If she hesitated she would lose her nerve. She grabbed a handful of Jaime’s shirt up by the shoulder and pulled her lips to his. He paused for only a moment before dropping the hand he was holding and winding his arm around her waist, pulling her flush against him. Groaning into her mouth, he stumbled forward, pushing her back, until she bumped into the wall of some building behind them. It might be the tailor’s shop. She couldn’t remember where they were. 

This felt… great. It wasn’t like Joan hadn’t been kissed before. Many times. It just… had been some time. Wall Maria falling and three years of intense training left little time to swap spit. No, this wasn’t swapping spit. It was sensual and heated. Even in the cool night, her skin felt too tight, too warm. 

Suddenly, his hand slid down her back and rested on the curve of her full skirt. He applied some pressure, pushing her closer to his hips and the hard flesh pressing into her stomach… 

She froze for a moment. 

“Too much, right?” Jaime asked, breathless as he pulled his mouth and hips away from her. “Sorry, sorry,” he murmured, resting his head against her shoulder. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

Joan relaxed against the wall behind her and cupped the back of Jaime’s neck with her hand. It was going to take a moment for her to catch her breath, too. 

“We should head back,” she finally suggested. “I’m getting sleepy.”

“Is that an invitation? Ow! Joking - joking!”

~*~

The meeting ended and Levi headed back to his office. There would be a small pile of paperwork to get through before they left at the end of the week. He turned down a long hall and noted a lone figure struggling to carry a stack of books at the very end of the hall. Whoever it was caught sight of him, spun around, and headed back down the hallway, turning the corner at the end.

“Fuck!” came from down the hallway, followed by a series of bangs. 

Despite how curious he was, Levi forced himself to walk at an even pace, turning just in time to see Joan Mulligan frantically stacking books. She had made herself scarce since the tavern a month ago. He knew she was avoiding him and quite frankly, he was okay with it. From the glimpses he had caught, she had stopped avoiding Jaime’s wandering hands. Which was just as well. 

“Need help?” he asked.

Joan jumped and turned around. “No, sir! I’m fine, sir!” And then she whipped around and continued stacking. Except, after she picked that stack up, she lost her footing and dropped the entire stack again. This time, she didn’t curse. Instead, she looked over her shoulder slowly and met Levi’s gaze. 

“You sure?” Levi prompted. 

“Sir…”

“Yes?”

“I… I didn’t do anything inappropriate to you, did I?” 

Levi frowned, recalling how she’d looked at him right before she’d asked him to dance. He knew she was referring to her hand on his upper thigh as she caught herself but that look… that had been incredibly more intimate. Her blue eyes had blinked up at him, even though she was a bit taller than him, and then they had skidded down to his lips. It was like her gaze drank him in. All he had wanted to do was tug her close and kiss her. 

But he hadn’t. Thankfully.

Looking her with unblinking eyes, Levi asked, “What do you mean?”

Joan turned scarlet. “I didn’t… make you uncomfortable?”

“When?”

“At the tavern, when we all went dancing?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I… I had a bit too much to drink, sir.”

“Ah.”

“So… I didn’t do anything inappropriate?”

“Before or after you groped my crotch?” 

“Oh fuck,” Joan hung her head low. “I’m so sorry, sir. My conduct was absolutely inexcusable.”

“Tch,” Levi shrugged, then knelt down to start stacking the books. Joan instantly knelt next to him to help. “You were drunk and you fell over. No harm, no foul. What is all this?”

“Squad leader Hange wanted these books,” she explained. “I didn’t think there would be so many.”

“You two seem to have gotten on well,” Leiv noted, stacking the final book. 

Joan smiled. “I have a medical background. She likes to pick my brain about human anatomy and compare it to Titan anatomy.” She hoisted the books up. 

“You put up with her craziness pretty well.”

She shrugged, smile going wider. “She reminds me of my father - in a weird way. He was very obsessive, too. I had to lure him away from his microscope to eat more nights than not.”

“Are you planning on transferring to her squad eventually?” Levi asked. The newest recruits floated amid the different squads their first couple of expeditions. If they lived, they were more permanently assigned to a squad. Levi’s squad was the one exception. 

“Probably,” she replied, then she frowned. “Of course, I don’t know how smart a move that would be. She’s got a pretty adequate grasp of field medicine. It might not make sense for two medically trained soldiers to be on the same squad.”

“That’s a valid concern,” he agreed. “And who knows, maybe another squad might want you.”

She tilted her head, “You think?”

Levi shrugged and walked away. 

~*~

Don't go out into the cold  
Where the wind and rain are blowing  
For the fire is flaming gold  
And in here the music's flowing


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song by Celtic Woman.

Of all the comrades that e'er I had  
They're sorry for my going away  
And all the sweethearts that e'er I had  
They'd wish me one more day to stay   
But since it fell unto my lot  
That I should rise and you should not   
I gently rise and softly call  
Good night and joy be to you all

~*~

They reached the first checkpoint just as the sun was setting. They were retracing their steps from the last expedition, hoping to go just a bit further this time. No one was seriously injured. One death and one sprained ankle from landing too hard after a Titan kill. Hange was busy wrapping it, while Joan took note of the medical supplies this base had. Not much - but that made sense. There weren’t too many Titans between the checkpoint and the wall. Still, she got to sorting through it. 

Lifting a box, her nose protested being so close to the inch of dust on top. She sneezed. The force created a small billowing dust cloud, which made her sneeze some more. 

“This place is filthy,” noted a voice behind her. The captain, of course. 

She put the box down and said, “In a weird way, sir, I’m grateful these supplies haven’t needed to be used but… yeah, this is pretty ridiculous…” She knelt down, observing the top of the box from a different angle to see the full height of the dust. 

“Here,” he said, reaching out a cloth. 

“Oh, that’s okay, sir,” she told him, instead pulling the one he had given her on the last expedition. It was still stained in parts, but she’d cleaned it so the stains were more a patchwork of tan and rust. The captain frowned at the cloth in her hand. “You told me I could keep it, sir,” she reminded him. 

“I did.”

Joan searched his expression as the frown was replaced by his usual cool neutrality and then she hesitantly wrapped the cloth around her face and got back to moving the boxes. When the captain just stood there, she asked, “You want to help, sir?”

“No.” He turned and walked away. 

Had she offended him? Was he disgusted that the handkerchief was stained and she still carried it around? Joan was still pondering what the hell was wrong with him when the box she was holding was lifted out of her hands. Jaime got a whiff of the dust, though, and gave a mighty sneeze. Joan smiled behind the mask and patted his shoulder. “You should let me handle this,” she suggested. “I’m properly protected.”

“Nah,” Jaime said, hefting the box up a bit higher. “You were out of sight on the journey here, so I couldn’t watch your back. Now I can. So I’m going to.” He stuck his tongue out and carried the box a few feet over.

Uh, what? 

Joan frowned at his back. “I don’t need you to watch my back,” she commented, trying to sound neutral. 

Jaime straightened as he noted the frown. “I didn’t say you needed your back watched. I just prefer it being watched.”

“You think I need it watched because you prefer it being watched. If you didn’t think I needed it, it wouldn’t matter if it was or was not watched.”

Now Jaime frowned. “This is getting too complicated to follow, Joanny. I didn’t mean anything by it, okay? I just want to help, okay?”

Joan looked between him and the boxes for a moment. She was being prickly for no reason, wasn’t she? Who knew a farm girl was so prideful? Or maybe she was just too weirded out by all the changes. They’d been friends since they were kids. Now that they were more than friends, there was bound to be a learning curve. Still, Joan wondered if he always prefered her back being watched or whether this was a new development.

“Sorry,” she finally said. “I’m just being a bitch.”

“I mean… You said it, not me.”

She stuck her tongue out at him before she realized he couldn’t see it behind her mask. He seemed to get the message though, as his face broke out in a smile. Together, they got to work. 

~*~

Levi pushed all unnecessary thoughts out of his head as he continued galloping through the countryside. There had only been red flares so far, nothing black and no stumbling deviants crashing through the formation. In his experience, this was too good to be true. 

One of the unnecessary thoughts he was trying very hard to keep out of his head was the fact that dead-last had kept his handkerchief. More than that, she’d packed it for this expedition. Maybe she just wanted a rag, sure. And it was gross and stained. Levi couldn’t explain why he had been so moved. In fact, he was uncomfortable with how moved he felt - it was like an itch on the back of his neck. And really, he couldn’t afford the distraction today.

As if the universe was playing a trick on him, the moment he had that thought, a black flare shot through the clear afternoon sky far in front of him. 

“Captain?” Eid asked, galloping up alongside him. “Should we increase our pace and make contact with the deviant?”

Levi frowned into the distance. “Yes,” he decided. He kicked his horse and leaned forward, letting the wind whip around him. 

It was two deviants, in fact. A tall, lean one, with razor teeth and claws and a short, stout one with thick bow-legs. The short one liked to kick. And kick quite a lot, if the carnage he left behind was any indication. Levi refused to look at any of the dead until the deviants were taken care of. He shouted, “I’ll take the kicker! Everyone else - take the tall one!”

Then, he swung up, hooking onto the Titans forehead just as it wound up a kick. He needed to get high enough into the air to avoid those legs. It seemed like the Titan didn’t have use of his arms, though. The engorged limps hung there, swinging with each kick. Levi braced himself as his body shot up, coming too close to a sharp kick. He used the Titan’s thigh, hopping onto it and then up, around, following the pull of his grapple. 

The nape came into view and Levi cut it with expert precision. As he dropped, he noted his squad had dispatched the other Titan just fine. 

Only then did he glance around at the carnage.

At least nine, from two different squads. One must of chased the Titan down, breaking formation. Levi approached the first body, trying to figure out which squad it was from. 

Fuck.

He was on his back, his face staring up towards the sky. At his waist, his body jutted off to the side as though something had violently bent him at the wrong angle and dropped him there. But Levi knew better - the kicking Titan’s foot had probably made contact right above his hip and his body had folded in on itself. He might not have died instantly but he wouldn’t have felt much. Lifeless, pale blue eyes stared up at Levi from under eyebrows that were too fair for his sun-weathered face. 

~*~

The next checkpoint was Castle Knox. Joan remembered it fondly, especially crying in front of Captain Levi. Her squad had held up the rear, so she was one of the last to arrive. Hopping off her horse, she handed it off to the soldier who was feeding them and she jogged into the castle. 

Hange surely had a couple patients that needed looking after and Joan was eager to get to work. There had only been one Titan that had come into her sight that day and her squad leader had advised they just outrun it. Easy enough, the thing was definitely on the smaller side. 

Joan smiled to herself, taking the stairs two steps at a time. She was officially experienced enough to consider a Titan “on the smaller side.” And why not? She’d killed taller Titans. 

As per usual, there was a line of bedridden soldiers. Joan was pleased to note that it was shorter than the last time they had been here. Hopefully no one needed surgery, too. 

“What have we got?” Joan asked, reaching into the pail of water left off to the side. She scrubbed her hands quickly as Hange brought her up to speed. 

Only one required attention, having broken his arm in two different places. One had a concussion from slamming face-first into a Titan’s back and one had been thrown from his horse and had some bad bruising on his upper hip. Hange and Joan worked together to set the broken arm.

“We are going to keep an eye on you through the night, okay?” she told the patient. “If you start feeling feverish or if there is any shooting pain, let me know.”

“Will do, doc,” the soldier grunted. 

Joan paused. The people of her village had always called her father “doc.” Her mother was usually just called, “Mrs. Mulligan” or “ma’am.” It had driven her mother crazy, especially because she was better at medicine than her husband. Sure, Joan’s father had actually gone to school to practice medicine and Joan’s mother had been taught by her mother, who had been taught by her mother... So, her children had started calling her “the witch doctor.” That had not gone well. 

“Rest,” she finally said, patting his uninjured shoulder. Then she stood and decided to take her own advice. 

As she surveyed the room, looking for Jaime, she caught Captain Levi staring. She glanced behind her to make sure he wasn’t looking so intently at someone else. But when she turned back around, a troubling thought occurred to her. Where was everyone? Her squad was the last to arrive - but they were missing at least a dozen people. She met Levi’s gaze and tilted her head. 

“Stop,” she said, the word springing from her mouth even though he was across the room and couldn’t hear it and even though she had no idea what he was going to say. He pushed himself off the wall he was leaning against and started walking towards her. “Stop it,” she repeated, backing up. “Stop.” When he just kept coming, she put her hands out as if to ward him off. 

It didn’t work. Instead, he reached her, grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her out of the room, down a hallway and into another room. He shut the door behind him.

“No,” was all Joan could say. 

“Joan, Jaime died.”

Her head shook back and forth so quickly her vision blurred and the world spun a bit. “Stop telling lies.”

“I saw his body,” Levi said quietly.

“Stop it,” she whispered, and the captain closed his mouth and just… looked at her. At some point her knees gave out and she kneeled on the floor. But there were no tears. She’d cried for Clare - a woman she didn’t even know. But Jaime… for Jaime there was nothing. 

She didn’t know how long she knelt there with the captain standing over her. 

Eventually though, he quietly commanded, “You need to stand up.”

As if his words compelled her, she stood.

“You need to check on Connor and then you need to get some sleep,” he told her. “Do you understand?” Joan nodded, still dazed. “I need you to say it outloud so I know you understand.”

Automatically, the words spilled out, “I need to check on Connor’s arm and I need to get some sleep.”

“Good, now go.”

She turned and left the room. 

It wasn’t until they returned back to base, expedition over, that Joan admitted to herself that he was gone. As coolly and professionally as possible, she stripped his bed linen in the men’s barracks. She packed up all his possessions in a tidy little box and she carried it to the women’s barracks, set it down, sat on her own bed and stared at the box.

When soldiers die, their bodies and personal effects were given to the next of kin. Sometimes they were hand-delivered if the family was close enough. Other times, the family was notified by letter and sent someone to pick the objects up.

Jaime had no family. 

By protocol, the box would be sorted through by other soldiers, picked over for useful supplies, and then discarded in the garbage. Joan couldn’t imagine his things in the garbage. She couldn’t imagine him dead. Twice she had stopped herself from asking Captain Levi how he had died. She didn’t want to know and yet not knowing left all the gruesome images in her head. Had he been bitten in half like her brother Thomas? Crushed and slurped up like her sister Jane? A Survey Corp member had swung down and ripped open the back of a Titan’s knees, causing the monster to fall on top of her mother. Was Jaime, too, now a smudge of blood somewhere in a field?

They had left the body. Too many dead to bring back and truly - it wasn’t advisable. Corpses bloated and reeked and carried disease. On expeditions that lasted several days, it was known that if you died out there, you rotted out there. 

At least he was close to home. 

Joan just kept staring at the box. Did she keep it? No, that felt wrong. Did she hand it over to Jaime’s squad leader? No, that felt even more wrong. 

Nodding to herself, she grabbed the box and walked out the door. She carried it all the way up to the top floor of the headquarters and walked down the hallway till she reached the office she was looking for. She’d only seen it from the outside, but based on her estimates, this should be the correct one. Shifting the box to one arm, she knocked.

“Absolutely not, Hange,” came a voice. 

Oh… she’d inadvertently picked up Hange’s way of knocking in a one-two pattern. The box was too heavy to carry with one arm for long, so she shifted it back and said, “It’s not Hange, sir.”

There was silence for a few too many beats. Would he turn her away? Then, there was the distinct sound of the scrape of a wooden chair on wooden floorboards, succinct footfalls, and the creak of the door as it opened. 

“I don’t know what to do with this, sir,” was all she said.

The captain glanced down at the box in her hands. “Come in,” he said, holding the door open for her. 

She stood in the middle of his office until he gestured to the seat across from his desk. From out his window, she could see the dangling rope. 

“I can’t believe you were spying on Humanity’s Strongest Soldier,” Jaime had joked. Joan pushed his voice to a dark corner of her brain and slammed the door on it. 

“He has no living family?” Captain Levi asked, leaning back in his chair. 

“No, they were all killed when Maria fell, sir,” she explained. 

“You know the protocol, then, right?”

Joan looked at the box in her lap. 

“It doesn’t feel right, sir,” she explained. 

“To throw it out?”

“And to keep it,” she added. “Nothing I do with it will feel right.”

“Of course not,” Levi said coolly. He leaned forward and picked up his teacup by the rim. He glanced between the cup and Joan for a moment, put the cup down and stood. “The right thing is for his possessions to stay in the barracks, in his bunk,” he continued as he walked across the room, grabbed an extra teacup and returned to his desk. “Just as the right thing is for him to also be in the barracks, in his bunk, alive and well..” He filled the cup and handed it to her. 

Joan took it and sipped, automatically. She knew the captain was famed for being a tea snob so surely this tea was superb but she couldn’t taste it. 

The captain sat back down and sighed. “My first expedition, I lost two good friends,” he said. Joan glanced up at him, surprise breaking through her otherwise impenetrable wall of emotionlessness. The captain grabbed his teacup again, but didn’t move to pick it up. Instead, his forefinger stroked the rim, back and forth. Joan watched, mesmerized. “We were all orphans and had grown up together. I was older than you are now, having joined the military late.”

“You mean when you were forced, sir?” Joan supplied. She remembered that conversation, though it felt like a lifetime ago. 

“Yes, except we weren’t really forced,” he said. “Well… It was an elaborate plan by Erwin, the sneaky bastard.” He frowned down at his cup. “Regardless, we all three joined the Survey Corps and on that first expedition they died. When we got back behind the wall, I packed up their things but had no one to send it to. None of us had much to begin with and when we left the Underground, we didn’t take much. It was mostly clothes. Farlan had a knife he always carried around and Isabel had some hair ribbons she never wore but always said she needed in case she met a cute boy.”

Joan watched the captain’s face as he continued to talk. As per usual, his expression was neutral. He could have been talking about a book he’d recently read, one that was only adequately entertaining. But his eyes were off, looking somewhere over her shoulder but seeing much farther than the present. 

“At first I thought maybe I’d keep some mementos and give the rest to our acquaintances in the Underground,” he said. “We had left some people down there and they could use the clothes. For a place that barely gets a breeze, it can get very cold down there.” Joan nodded, remembering those bitter nights. “I thought maybe they’d want their things to help the people we knew… But that felt wrong. We had spent our whole lives trying to escape that hellish place. For even a part of them to be stuck back there… yeah. No. Instead, I burned the boxes. The next expedition, I found a nice hilly area and after dark, burned them under the open sky. I didn’t leave a marker, so I have no idea where they are now, but they’ll never be trapped inside a wall or underground again.”

The captain took a sip of his tea and met Joan’s gaze. He was back in the office, back from wherever he had gone. “I don’t recommend you do that,” he said. “And if I catch you sneaking off during the next expedition to try, I’ll break both your legs.”

A very, very slight smile tugged at her lips. His detached expression and cool voice didn’t match his words. “I won’t,” she promised. She looked down at the box, caressing the top of it. “I’ll think of something else, sir. Thank you for your words of advice and for sharing.”

He took another sip of tea and casually said, “If you tell anyone what I told you, no one will find your body.”

“Of course, sir.” She did smile this time. Then she stood and left. 

~*~

Levi watched her leave. 

She was handling the loss well. As well as could be expected. He didn’t think she’d cried yet, though. He hoped that when it happened, she wasn’t doing anything too important. Too late, he remembered he had had something for her.

Reaching down to the bottom drawer of his desk, he yanked it open to reveal the bag Joan had lost on the last expedition. He pulled it out and examined the outside. After he had told her Jaime had died and sent her to bed, he’d told Erwin he was running an errand. Well, he’d asked Erwin if he could run an errand. Erwin allowed him to go, only because he’d been there before. It had been a quick trip. 

He had considered taking a peek inside, but decided that would be rude. 

Instead, he brushed a hand along the leather exterior. 

It was dirty - rain had made the ground beneath it muddy and it had gotten trapped under the decomposing Titan corpse. Levi half hated the fact that something so disgusting was in his personal space. But he’d seen how lost Joan had been when she’d learned Jaime was dead. He had wanted to cheer her up. He really should have followed after her when he remembered he had her bag… But he wanted to hang onto the bag just a little longer. He didn’t know why. 

He wrinkled his nose when the stench reached him. He dropped the bag back into the drawer and kicked it closed. Then, he thoroughly wiped down his hands. 

~*~

Fill to me the parting glass   
And drink a health whate’er befalls   
And gently rise and softly call   
Good night and joy be to you all


	7. Chapter 7

'Oh what a joyful life have I,'  
She told me, 'neath that open sky,  
'My knight is there upon the field:  
How fortunate am I...  
For when I think to fail and yield  
One word from him inspires me.'  
She bade me watch him closely  
And she pointed out his shield.

~*~

Joan was bent over a stack of books, taking notes here and there. A small divot had developed in between her eyebrows as she concentrated. That was how Commander Erwin found her.

“Sir!” she stuttered, standing up so fast her chair almost fell over. 

“At ease, Mulligan,” the commander said. “May I sit?” 

“Yes, sir, of course,” she gestured to the seat across from her and sat back down. “What can I help you with, sir?”

“I was just walking passed the library and I noticed the candles,” he said. “I figured I’d stop in. What are you doing?”

Joan spread an arm wide across the pile of books. “Research, sir. Hange and I are trying to devise a better way to deal with limb loss, sir.”

“What gave you that idea?”

“Kyle York, sir. When he lost his leg, we were able to make a tourniquet in time to halt the bleeding. Shock and blood loss are the two most common ways limb loss kills a soldier. If we can stem the blood loss more effectively, we can save more lives. We can prepare tourniquets and outfit squads with them,” she explained.

“Brilliant,” the commander said. 

Joan practically glowed from the praise. “Thank you, sir. It was mostly Hange’s idea. I’m just doing the grunt work.”

“Have you considered which squad you want to join?”

“Um… not really, sir,” she said. “I get along very well with Hange, of course, but that seems like a bad idea to clump the medically trained soldiers into one squad.”

“I agree.”

“So… I will probably just go where I’m assigned, sir.”

The commander stroked his chin. “Captain Levi has taken note of you.”

“He has?” Joan asked, sitting up straighter. “I mean, he’s punched me, kicked me, slapped me and he calls me dead-last even though all the other soldiers stopped after the first expedition, sir. No disrespect, but I don’t think he’s noticed me for the right reasons.”

The commander chuckled. “That’s how Levi shows affection.”

A blush worked it’s way up her neck. “Oh?”

“I’m joking, soldier,” Erwin said.

“Oh,” she let out a long breath. Good. 

“But in all honesty, the first time Levi and I met, he tried to stab me.”

“Really?” Her mouth dropped open.

“And that was just the first time he tried to kill me,” Erwin continued, smiling to himself. “He’s come a long way. He’s an amazing soldier. If he asks you to join his squad, I’d highly recommend it.”

Joan frowned down at the pile of books. “But they are the best squad, right, sir?” He nodded. “I wouldn’t have much work to do.”

“You’re a soldier,” Erwin reminded her. “On Levi’s squad, you’d have a lot of work to do.”

“That’s not what I meant… sir.”

He stood gracefully. “I know what you meant. It’s noble what you’re doing. And you should keep doing it. But there is a reason we stopped bringing medics on expeditions years ago: every soldier who goes beyond the wall is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of humanity. When we can prevent that sacrifice, we do. Medics tend to go above and beyond and Mulligan... it gets them killed.” He loomed over her.

Slowly, she nodded. “I… I understand, sir.”

The commander passed Hange as he left.

Hange glanced between the two and waited for him to be out of earshot. “You chatting with the commander?”

“I have no idea,” Joan groaned, putting her head in her hands. “He’s so cryptic.”

“Ha! Yeah, he never says what he actually means,” Hange noted. “So. You want to take a break?”

“No,” Joan replied, scanning her notes. “I’m on a roll.”

“Let me rephrase: we are taking a break.” Joan glanced up at Hange. Her eyes were wide beneath her glasses and her smile was wicked. “That’s an order.”

Joan closed the book and leaned back. “What did you have in mind?”

“Dancing.”

A sharp pain pierced Joan right in the chest. She had to force herself not to reach up and grasp her shirt. “No. Thanks,” she managed to say. 

Hange pulled out a flask and smacked it on the table. Sometimes Joan thought Hange had a drinking problem. “Chug that and then make your decision.”

“Hange, I really don’t want to go dancing. I absolutely don’t want to go. Please don’t make me.”

Her eyes softened as she looked at Joan. Then she unscrewed the flask and held it out to her. “Chug, Joan. I won’t make you go. But I will remind you of why Jaime used to take the rookies out after an expedition. I’ll also remind you why the other soldiers still go. And why they are going tonight. We see more death than we see life. We spend so long avoiding death and we think that’s living. It’s not. We need to go and remember what living is, Joan.”

Joan stared at the flask, took a deep breath, snatch it up, and chugged it in three long drags. She coughed as her throat burned. And then she handed to flask back. “Hange - how do you remember what living is?” 

“Everyone has their own way,” Hange replaced the flask in her jacket. “Personally, I enjoy casual sex.”

Joan blinked at her, trying to decide if the older woman had really just said that. When she just stared back at Joan, she forced herself to ask, “You have sex with other soldiers? Casually?”

“Psh, not other soldiers. They’re all too serious. But civilians have a thing for a lady in uniform.” Hange slapped a hand on the desk and stood. “Time to go. Put on something pretty and let’s go!” Despite her words, she kept looking at Joan, watching her reaction. Joan finally sighed and nodded. “Great! Meet at the gates! I’ll round up the troops!”

Something pretty?

Joan frowned at her small chest of possessions. She only had one thing that was pretty and she was not going to wear it. That beautiful blue dress reminded her too much of Jaime and she didn’t want to think too hard about Jaime. Her lips were a little numb as the alcohol hit her and she chewed her bottom lip in concentration. 

“Okay…” she muttered, dragging an outfit out of the chest. 

It was her only civilian outfit besides her dress: a pair of high-waisted black pants that had definitely seen better days and a white men’s shirt. She slid the pants on and paused to look at her chest. She had the Mulligan tits - they were too big and had grown too fast, too early. When she was in uniform, she wore a tight chest binding to make the uniform straps more comfortable. They also threw off her center of gravity when she was airborne using 3D maneuvering gear. She undid her binding and threw on the men’s shirt. It usually fell below her ass, so she tied the end into a bow around her waist. Then she rolled up her sleeves. 

This was… pretty? Well, pretty acceptable, at least. 

As she left the barracks, she nearly ran into Captain Levi. He looked like he was waiting for her. 

“Good, you didn’t chicken out,” he noted. Then he turned and began walking.

“Hange sent you?” She followed.

“She bullied me into it,” he corrected. 

Joan smiled. “I didn’t think anyone could bully the famous Captain Levi.”

“She’s taller than me - it can be a little intimidating.” He spoke with such a deadpan, Joan nearly choked. As she coughed, he banged on her back. “But in all honesty, I’ve known her for so long. I know when to pick and choose my battles. And I thought you might chicken out.”

“Nope, not chickening out,” she sighed. 

“Your breath reeks of alcohol,” Levi noted. 

“Hange gave me some liquid courage.”

“Her liquid is strong. Try to keep your hands to yourself, okay?”

Joan stopped for a moment and stared at the back of his head. He just kept walking. “I don’t remember much of that night but I do remember that I didn’t mean to grope you,” she explained, jogging to catch up. 

He shot her a side-eye glance but said nothing.

Fine. Fire with fire. “There was one thing I remember quite clearly, sir.”

“And what was that?”

“You checked out my cleavage.”

He didn’t miss a step. He didn’t even blink. And he didn’t say anything but Joan would have bet money that his pale cheeks got slightly redder. 

“I did,” he admitted. “I was unimpressed.”

A loud, snorting laugh burst from Joan’s mouth. Goodness, she had met her match. 

“What was it you told me after you bashed my head into the ground? You can lie to yourself, captain, but don’t lie to me.” Oh fuck. Did she just say that? 

“I must have bashed your head just a little too hard for you to be talking such nonsense,” was all Levi said. But when she glanced over at him, he was smirking ever so slightly. Good. She hadn’t offended him. That was the last thing she needed on her plate right now. 

“Joan! That isn’t pretty!” Hange exclaimed as they approached the group. It was as large as last time. 

~*~

Levi didn’t know what Hange was talking about. Yeah, Joan had looked just fine in the blue dress. But those pants hugged every curve of her legs, her ass, her hips, and her waist. The fabric looked soft to the touch, though Levi suspected that was because it was so old. It was nearly threadbare. That shirt was too loose to showcase her breasts, but Levi didn’t mind. He’d already gotten his eyeful and apparently Joan had caught him. 

He needed to be more subtle.

Joan put her hands on her hips and frowned at Hange. “I’m a poor rookie, Hange. Not a fancy squad leader like you. Cut me some slack.”

“Well, your next paycheck - we are buying you some real clothes,” Hange decided. 

“Eh, I’d rather get some new shoes,” Joan said. Levi realized she was wearing her standard issue boots - just like she had with that blue dress. Were those the only shoes she owned?

“Joan!” Kyle made his way over to Joan and hugged her. In doing so, he almost hit Levi with his crutch. Levi couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed at a cripple. 

“Hey, Kyle,” she greeted, hugging him back.

“You’re going to save a dance for me, right?” 

“Sure!”

“A slow one, right…?” Kyle winked. 

Joan patted his shoulder. “And… you ruined it.”

Hange wrapped an arm around Kyle, nearly knocking him off balance. “Be subtle, Kyle-boy. Subtle.”

Yeah, Kyle and Levi both.

The group headed out. Joan stayed on pace with Kyle as he limped along, discussing what Kyle had been up to back on base. Hange fell into step with Levi. “So, you going to dance tonight?”

“So, you going to stop being an idiot?”

“Oh, don’t be so grumpy,” she grunted. “I’ve seen how well you spin around a Titan. Surely you can spin around just as well on a dance floor.”

Levi debated whether to stay silent or not. Finally he admitted. “I’ve never danced before.”

Hange stopped walking and the soldier behind her bumped into her. “Sorry, sorry,” she said. Then she turned back to Levi. “I can believe you’ve never danced. I cannot believe that you would actually tell me that!”

He shrugged.

A huge smile broke out on her face. “Sometimes I remember our first conversation, where you were so tight lipped about 3D maneuvering device techniques. How far we’ve come, huh?”

“Stop being such an idiot, four eyes.”

They reached the tavern and Levi made a bee-line for the bar. He didn’t get drunk but some beer might make this all more tolerable. And then he took a seat at the bar. Hopefully no one bugged him.

Over the course of the night, he watched Hange get shitfaced and stumbled away with a very handsome civilian. He watched Kyle Monk and Joan Mulligan dance slowly around the dance floor. She was careful of the amputated leg. Joan also danced with some other soldiers. The song ended and Joan weaved through the crowd, back to the bar. She leaned onto it and ordered another beer. Levi nudged a stool near her and told her, “Sit, dead-last.”

Obediently, she sat. The barkeep sent over the drink and Levi paid for it. 

“Hey!” she piped up. 

“You have one pair of shoes,” Levi reminded her. 

“Oh… yeah,” she frowned down at her boots. 

He handed her the beer, got his own refill, and sat next to her. “You didn’t wear the dress,” he noted. 

“It felt… wrong,” she said, taking a big gulp of beer. “Listen, I don’t want to talk about him, okay? I don’t know when I’ll be ready to, but right now - no. I just can’t casually mention him without feeling like I have something stuck in my windpipe so I just don’t want to even think about him, not even a little, okay?”

“Drink more, dead-last, and maybe you’ll start making sense.”

“Sir, yes sir!” With a big, sloppy smile, she gulped half the beer. If she puked later, Levi was going to rub her face in it. Literally. She took a deep breath and gulped the rest of it. Yeah, she was going to puke later. She stumbled to her feet, plucked the beer from his hand, and put it on the bar. Then she grabbed both his hands and tugged him to his feet. 

“What?” Levi asked, frowning at her. 

“We are dancing,” she announced. 

“We are not,” Levi shot back. Her face fell. Fuck. She tried to drop his hands but he replaced her grip with his own. “Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. As they approached the dance floor, someone whistled. Levi knew it was another soldier. He craned his neck to see their face so he could kick them in the balls later. No such luck. 

As they faded into the crowd, the tune changed to something far slower than Levi had been prepared for. Fuck. He could face down a Titan, no big deal - but this actually made him nervous. 

Thankfully, Joan seemed to be on auto-pilot as she placed a hand on his shoulder and another in his hand. Levi frowned at his extra hand - where was he supposed to put it? Joan seemed to note his confusion with a pitying smile. She grabbed it and placed it flat on her waist. Her hand lingered over his for a moment, and then she replaced her grip on his shoulder. 

“I’ll lead,” she offered. 

Joan smiled down at him as she took a step and they fell into pattern of moving. Her waist was warm under his hand and the fabric of her pants was so soft. He had to stop his fingers from caressing her. Dancing wasn’t unpleasant, he decided. His hand was a little sweaty in hers but he could always wash it later. And Joan was a pretty hygienic person. 

She stumbled forward and Levi caught her by tightening the grip on her waist. 

“You’re strong,” she noted. 

“I’m Humanity’s Strongest Soldier,” he reminded her. 

She rolled her eyes. “Humanity’s most modest man as well.”

The words slurred a bit but still got a chuckle from Levi. Instinctively his grip tightened on her waist and she blinked at him. She readjusted her hand in his. Her eyes didn’t leave his as she smiled down at him. She was taller by a couple inches but lean and under his hand, her body felt petite. Combined with her flushed cheeks and bright blue eyes, she seemed so feminine despite the pants and men’s shirt. There was muscle flexing under his palm and Levi had seen her in action. He knew how strong she was. 

They twirled once, twice, and then the music stopped. Levi hoped the next song was just as slow. 

As the fiddle started up again, Joan’s whole body froze. Levi caught himself from stumbling and narrowed his eyes at her. 

Her head shook back and forth quickly. “This was his favorite song. I can’t. I can’t.”

And then… the tears began. 

A sob tore out of her mouth as the other dancers spun around them. Someone bumped into Levi but he didn’t spare them a glare. Instead, he moved the arm from her waist up, around her to the upper back and pulled her against him. His other hand came around and he just hugged her. Joan’s face pressed into the crook of his neck as she sobbed. Her arms came around his neck and hung on. If only to appease the other dancers still circling them, Levi swayed the two of them back and forth, rocking her in a way he hoped was comforting. Levi didn’t know how long they stayed like that. His shirt got drenched but he didn’t let go. 

“I’m sorry,” she hiccuped into his ear. 

“Stop talking nonsense,” her ordered, not unkindly. And then he lifted his hand to tangle in her short hair, pressing her face closer. 

“I shouldn’t have gotten so drunk,” she said after a couple minutes, hiccuping. 

“You needed to let off steam, dead-last,” he said. “You were too tightly wound. The booze loosened you up. Let it.”

“I knew I’d lose friends,” she mumbled into his neck. “I knew that. But he wasn’t a friend. He was family. He was… he was my last bit of home. There’s no one else, now. Everyone is dead and gone. I can’t.”

Levi didn’t say anything. Instead, he just kept holding her. 

Her sobs quieted down and she readjusted the grip on his neck. “I’m so sorry, captain. I’ve made a mess of your shirt.”

“Dead-last, stop acting like an idiot,” he ordered. 

When she pulled away, Levi let her. 

“I think I want to go back to base,” she said. 

“That’s a good idea,” he agreed. 

Levi walked her back. She only stumbled a little and mostly walked straight. The crying seemed to have sobered her up. As they reached to gates, Levi ordered, “Come up to my office.”

She said nothing but obediently followed. He directed her towards the chair across from his desk and he retrieved the bag from his desk drawer. Her mouth gaped as she caught sight of it in his hands. Levi passed it to her and leaned against his desk, watching the slow smile bloom on her face as she stroked the stained leather. 

“When?” was all she asked. 

“Castle Knox,” he said, shrugging. 

Joan smiled up at him and her eyes welled with tears. “You travelled through Titan-infested plains in the middle of the night to cheer me up?”

Levi crossed his arms. “Don’t read too much into it, dead-last.”

“This is filthy,” she said, holding it up and waving it at him. “I can’t believe you willingly touched it with your bare hands - let alone kept it in your office.”

But Levi didn’t say anything. He just stared at her, expressionless. He didn’t want her to think the gesture meant too much. She’d get the wrong idea. Levi really didn’t know what the right idea was… or what the actual idea was… 

Her gaze dropped back to the bag and she gingerly opened it. She pulled out a book that had definitely seen better days. “This was my favorite book,” she explained. “It’s an abridged encyclopedia of diseases. My dad used to open it up to a random page and read the list of symptoms and I had to figure out what disease it was. It was a game.” She stroked the spine. “I was a weird kid.”

“Still are,” Levi said simply.

Joan stuck her tongue out at him and put the book on his desk. Then she pulled out a long thin tube with metal at the end. “My father’s stethoscope,” she explained. 

“What’s a stethoscope?” Levi frowned at the contraption. Surely you didn’t insert it…? 

“It helps you hear things,” she said. “Here.” She stood and moved to place the metal caps into Levi’s ears. He was too curious to stop her but she seemed to pause, her hands lingering on either side of his face. Her fingers brushed against the hair that fell past his ears. As Levi looked up at her, he watched her come back to her senses, blinking quickly. Then she took the other end and pushed her shirt open a little. Levi followed the movement with his eyes, remembered the conversation they had had about her cleavage, and deftly looked right back up at her face. He did happen to catch an eyeful of pale flesh and a string necklace. He did not happen to see what was at the end of that string. 

A ghost of a smile flitted across Joan’s face. Fuck. Subtle. Then she pressed the metal end over her heart.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. 

“Why do you need to hear it this loudly,” Levi asked, removing the metal caps and handing it to Joan. “It’s pretty obvious when a heart stops beating.”

“You can hear any irregularities in the heart beat and you can hear congestion in the lungs, among other, useful things,” Joan explained. She sat back down and continued to go through the bag.

Levi watched Joan, glad she seemed to be cheered up. Her smile was more sincere by the minute. He glanced at the tea set on the cabinet behind Joan. Should he make some tea? He wouldn’t be sleeping for a couple hours at least but Joan seemed to have a normal sleep schedule. No… tea would be a bad idea. She probably needed rest. 

Then Joan pulled something from her bag - a scrap of dark cloth. She loving folded it and Levi caught sight of the embroidered initials on it. 

Before he even realized he had moved, Levi snatched the cloth out of her hands. 

“Where did you get this?” Levi asked.

When Kenny had taken him from his mother’s room, mostly starved, it had been the middle of winter. He’s taken the scarf from his own neck and been able to wrap it around Levi’s scrawny body almost three times. Even when he started putting on weight and filling out, it had always been more like a poncho than a scarf. It had been one of the last things of Kenny’s he had had left after the man had walked straight out of his life. The last time he had seen this, he’d been wrapping the lost girl in it. When she ran into the crowd looking for her father, she had taken the scarf with her. 

“Give that back!” Joan moved to snatch it back but Levi lifted it over his head, out of her grasp. Instead, she stumbled against him straining to reach it. 

~*~

The night had certainly taken a turn for the weird. Well… it had started weird and kept getting weirder. She danced with Captain Levi. She cried on Captain Levi’s shoulder. Captain Levi revealed that he’d retrieved the bag she thought she’d lost in her village. And now Joan was pressed flat against Captain Levi, straining to grab one of her most prized possessions from his hand. Why couldn’t she reach it? He was shorter than her - did he just have freakishly long arms?

“Where did you get this?” he repeated. Joan stopped straining and frowned down at him. 

“Why?”

“Don’t ignore my question,” Levi ordered.

Joan put her hands on her hips. “Someone gave that to me a very long time ago.”

“Who?”

Joan searched his face, trying to decipher why this was important to him. He obviously recognized the scarf. And he’d been from the Underground… Joan’s eyes widened as a thought occurred to her. He must have known the boy this scarf belonged to. The initials embroidered into it were K and A - Joan had always figured those were the boy’s initials. 

“A boy from the Underground,” Joan explained. “You recognize it, don’t you? Did you know him? The boy who owned this scarf?” Levi’s arm dropped a smidge as he considered her words. Joan hopped and gripped the other end of the scaf. They stood like that, arms outstretched, both holding onto the scrap of fabric as they stared each other down.

Finally, Levi said quietly, “I recognize it because it was mine.”

“No it wasn’t,” Joan shot back instantly.

Levi’s head tilted as his eyes narrowed. “It was mine.”

Joan relaxed against him, trying to sort out her thoughts. If it had been his, somehow her savior had gotten a hold of it. “Did you lose it?”

“I lent it to a bratty girl and she ran off with it,” Levi explained. 

Oh. So someone had stolen it and it had eventually ended up with her boy. That made sense. Joan looked up at the cloth still caught in both of their grasps. If it was originally his, she should let go. But she couldn’t. She had slept with that scarf - worn it all day and night. Her mother had had to sneak the scarf away from her to wash it. The first time she had done that, Joan had cried herself to sleep. Yeah, the scarf had come from the Underground, but her hero had been impeccably clean and the fabric hadn’t smelled bad. It had smelled like him. 

“You got it from a boy from the Underground?” Levi asked, pulling Joan from her thoughts. 

“Yes.”

“What did he look like?” 

Joan frowned. “I don’t really remember… I was pretty young and I only knew him for a short time.” Her grip on the fabric loosened but she still couldn’t bring herself to let go. “My dad used to bring vitamin D supplements to the Underground. I went with him when I was young. I got lost…” Levi’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“You got lost in the Underground?” 

When she nodded, Levi released the cloth and dropped his hand to her face. Lightly grasping her chin, he moved her face right and left, studying it. Joan let him but frowned in confusion. 

After a minute, he let her go. “You were the bratty girl.”

“I’ve never been a brat in my life,” Joan shot back. 

“You headbutted me in the chest and I bought you jerky.” 

… No. Joan stumbled back, clutching the scarf to her chest. It seemed like way too big of coincidence. But… that certainly would explain why she felt like she had known him… No. “You can’t be him. He was much taller.”

“You were a lot shorter.”

Joan made a noise in the back of her throat. “He was a lot nicer.”

“You were less annoying.”

The reality of the situation set into Joan’s brain. It made sense. He knew about the jerky. He had owned the scarf. “Well, you certainly got a lot meaner.”

A vein above Levi’s left eye pulsed a bit. “You got a lot uglier.”

“I was like ten - that’s super creepy. Did you really think a ten year old was attractive?”

“You were already ugly - it just got worse.”

Joan continued to search his face. She tried so desperately to recall the boy. Instead, all she could see was Levi’s expressionless face peering at her. “It really is you, isn’t it?”

He shrugged and crossed his arms. “Apparently. So you are stalking me or what?”

“It seems more like fate,” Joan commented with a hesitant smile. 

“Tch,” Levi leaned back. “Don’t be sappy.”

“I thought about you everyday,” Joan admitted. “I hoped you were okay. And I’m glad you got out of the Underground.” Levi didn’t say anything, just looked at the scarf in her hand. Joan followed his gaze and held the cloth out to him. “I guess this really is yours. Sorry for running off with it.”

Levi took it from her and ran a finger down the embroidered K. 

~*~

Living in a world where humankind was trapped behind a series of walls, it wasn’t unusual for small coincidences to happen. People crossed paths all the time. Levi didn’t know how to feel about this coincidence. 

There was a distinct resemblance between her and the girl, now that he looked closer. Her hair was a shade darker and significantly shorter. That was a shame. But practical. Her round face had thinned out and her body had filled out. But there was a spark - an energy inside her that Levi really should have recognized sooner. 

Levi unfolded the scarf and draped it over Joan’s shoulders. He pulled it around her, holding the two ends together and not letting go. “Keep it. You seem to have developed an unhealthy attachment to it.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Joan muttered but she put her hand over his. “Thank you, Levi.”

He gently untangled himself and leaned back against his desk. Both of them stood, lost in their own thoughts. Then Joan asked, “Your friend - the one you had to meet. Was he one of the two that followed you to the surface?”

“Farlan,” Levi said. “Yes, he did.”

“Have you ever gone back?”

“To the Underground?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. 

“Absolutely not. There’s nothing for me there.”

“Are you happy - I mean as a soldier? I always wondered.”

“I’m content,” Levi shrugged. “I mean… Before I joined the Survey Corps, I had no direction. I was a thug just trying to get citizenship on the surface. When I finally reached the surface, I had the opportunity to go beyond the wall. It was like a dream - to be so free.” Levi pushed himself off the desk and walked to the window. “The air smells different beyond the wall - have you noticed that?”

Joan joined him. “Yes. My village had lots of fresh air but beyond the wall… it’s different.”

“The world got so much bigger for me,” Levi continued. “There were monsters in the Underground but on my first expedition I realized that Titans were the true monsters. I’m content to do what I can to protect humanity.”

Joan looked at him. “Who knew… my hero from the Underground would end up being Humanity’s Strongest Soldier.”

“You didn’t creepily idolize me, did you?”

Her head drooped to the side, falling on his shoulder as she sheepishly said, “I absolutely did.” Then she froze, realizing she had just pressed her forehead on his shoulder… It was an old habit - she had done it all the time with Jaime. 

Before she could jump away, though, Levi’s hand came up and cupped the back of her neck. So Joan decided to enjoy the moment. Despite having been in a crowded tavern for hours, only a thin layer of it’s scent lingered on his skin. Underneath that layer was the captain’s usual scent: clean and fresh but not sterile. Crisp. Joan wanted to lift her head just a little and press her lips to the crook of his neck. If she had had just a bit more to drink, maybe she would have. 

Instead, she closed her eyes and smiled to herself. The boy from the Underground was still appearing just in time and saving her.

Then, Levi’s thumb began tracing a pattern in a caress right over her pulsepoint. Joan relaxed, sighing a bit. Was this… a come on? An invitation to get a bit closer? She didn’t find out because she suddenly yawned and his touch stilled. 

“You should get some rest,” he advised.

“I should,” Joan agreed, even though she really wanted to invite him to join her. She lifted her head and pressed her lips to his cheek. “Thank you. For everything. And for the record, you’re still the coolest person I know. Goodnight.” She pulled the scarf around her tighter, collected her things, and left. 

~*~

I smiled then as she left me  
I'd been watching him already  
I'd watched that horse and rider dance  
And vanquish all their foes.

I'd watched him smile like sunlight  
As he led his men to battle  
I laughed and watched that joy again  
All morning as he rode.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics by Heather Dale.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics credit goes to T-Swift. 
> 
> So, uh, fair warning - this just jumps into some explicit stuff. I had to break up the story like this, otherwise last chapter would have been way too long. From here on out, there are going to be some pretty consistent instances of explicit intimacies. You've been warned.

Yeah, I want you  
We can't make  
Any promises now, can we, babe?  
But you can make me a drink

~*~

Levi waited until the door closed before he reached up and touched the place where she’d kissed him. It was still warm. With a small sigh, he stopped any train of thought before it got started. He had paperwork to do, so he started preparing tea and got to work. 

Hours later, he stretched and noted the sun was rising. He was still in the clothing from last night. Maybe it was time for a quick shower? Standing, he approached the window, opening it wider. The weather was warming up and his office was getting stuffy. In the yard below, he noted someone was working out. 

In the standard uniform pants and a loose, sleeveless and low-cut undershirt, Joan was lifting weights. Levi paused, watching her. She was positioning a single large weight above and behind her head, lifting it with both hands up and down just as she squatted up and down. The movements were seamless and as the weight was lifted up, her chest pushed out. She had bound her breasts, but they were pushed up, spilling over the fabric. 

Shit. His pants got tight and he reached down to adjust. 

Finishing that series of exercises, Joan switched to flawlessly doing a jumping jack, kneeling down to do a push-up and then hopping back to her feet. Even though she’d restricted her breasts, they still bounced as she jumped and Levi had a clear view. 

His hand lingered down at the fastening of his pants. Before he could think to deeply about it, he slid the palm of his hand against the hard length of himself, stroking a bit. It wasn’t until she laid down, placed a weight level with her hips, and began pushing her hips up that Levi cursed, unfastened his pants, and grasped himself in his hand. 

Which was exactly when Joan happened to glance up. His instinct was jump back and behind the wall but he remembered the window sill blocked her view. She had no idea he was touching himself. And from the distance, she probably couldn’t see the color on his cheeks. Levi knew when she caught sight of him because she smiled and waved. Without missing a stroke, he lifted his free hand and waved back. Then he realized he couldn’t continue to stand there and watch her. 

Fine. Dick in hand, he walked back to his desk, sat down, leaned back, and closed his eyes. He remembered the feeling of her waist underneath his hand as they danced. Drawing on that, he imagined that there had been no fabric between his palm and her flesh - that she was on her back, her hips pushing up as Levi kept a grip on her waist, keeping her pinned underneath him as she writhed. In his imagination, he was fucking her hard - her mouth open and her hands gripping his shoulders.

“Fuck…” he muttered as his pace increased. He felt a familiar tightening as he imagined her eyes staring into his own. Grabbing a handkerchief, he let himself get lost in the blue of her irises just as he prepared to finish. “Joan…”

~*~

When Levi disappeared back into his office, he left the window open. Joan finished her set and sat up. She loved to climb but she’d held off because of how the rope was positioned next to Levi’s office window. Things were different though, now, right? And he’d left the window open. That was basically an invitation to say hi, right?

Gone were the formalities of the military - at least, that’s what it seemed like. He wasn’t just her commanding officer. He was her boy from the Underground. 

Joan hopped up and began climbing. When she reached the top she paused. Levi was at his desk, his head thrown back. His eyes were closed but his mouth was slightly parted, his eyebrows tight together, like he was concentrating. It was the most expression Joan had ever seen on his face. Which was why she didn’t even notice the movement of his hand in his lap until he cursed, leaned over and grabbed a handkerchief. 

Oh. Fuck. Joan froze and considered her options. There was only one, really. Climb down. Climb down as fast as possible. And look away! Oh fuck, she couldn’t look away from the hard flesh pulsing beneath his hand. 

But he couldn’t catch her looking. He would be so pissed. He would kill her. Joan forced her eyes closed and began to climb down until… 

“Joan…”

He caught her. On instinct, her eyes flashed open again but… his were still closed. He… hadn’t caught her. 

“Fuck, Joan,” he muttered.

Oh. 

Her heartbeat was strumming so loudly, she could hear it in her ears. What should she do? The most sensible thing would be to leave. She should climb down and pretend like she had never seen this, never heard this. But fuck… all she wanted to do was hop through the window and lend him a hand. Still unsure, she adjusted her grip on the rope and suddenly Levi’s eyes shot open. 

There was a frantic sound of a chair scraping and another curse. 

“Joan!” he growled, and most definitely not in a sexy way.

“Sorry!” she said, adjusted her grip again. Her arms were getting way too sore. Shit… okay. She swung over to the sill and pulled herself into his office. Levi was still in his chair, a handkerchief clutched over his lap. One look at his flushed face and wild eyes, and Joan’s mind was made up. 

She crossed the room and knelt in front of him. Levi watched her cautiously. When she moved to grab the cloth off his lap, his hand caught hers. 

“Please,” she said. “I want to do this. I can’t help myself.”

His expression turned blank as he studied her. Then, he stood, dragging her to her feet. Joan fully expected him to throw her out on her face. Instead, he slammed her against the wall and asked, “Do you know what you’re asking for?”

“I’m asking you to let me remember how to live,” she responded. “I feel alive when I’m close to you.”

Levi took a deep breath, gripped her hand, and placed it on his hard length. They moaned in unison. Joan had never done this before but she’d heard the mechanics of it from her mother and uncles. Her mother would explain how to prevent pregnancy to the young women in the village - suggesting sex acts that brought partners to completion without risking a baby. Her uncles were just lewd in the taverns.

Joan was fascinated by how soft the outer flesh was and how solid it was underneath, like silk encasing steel. He had two distinct veins and Joan traced her thumb over them, then moved back to the tip, catching a bit of his leakage and smearing it around the head. 

“You’ve done this before,” Levi accused, not unkindly. In fact, he seemed to be struggling to catch his breath as Joan slid her hand all the way down and back up. 

“No, I haven’t,” she said and then she leaned forward and did what she had wanted to do the night before. She pressed her lips to the crook of his neck. Instantly, Levi cupped the back of her neck and kept her there. Joan smiled into his flesh, then sucked gently in that spot as she increased the pace of her hand. 

“Fuck…” Levi muttered. His hips jerked and suddenly her mouth was pulled off his neck as he grabbed her hair, yanked her up, and pushed her shirt down so he could see her cleavage. His eyes only stayed there for a moment before meeting her gaze. As his hips broke the pattern of thrusting and began spasming, he stared right into her eyes. He might be the one orgasming, but Joan felt weightless and mystified.

They both stopped for a moment, panting. Then, Levi tossed the handkerchief he’d finished in somewhere behind him, and grabbed another from the desk drawer to wipe down her hand. Once that was done, he put himself back into his pants, adjusted his waistband and refastened them. They didn’t speak and suddenly Joan second-guessed her choice. Had this been a mistake? Had they crossed a line they shouldn’t have? Was he regretting it, too?

Before Joan could verbalize her concerns, Levi spun her around by the shoulder so her back was to him, and then pulled her close. One hand dragged up to her breasts and the other dropped to her pants. Deftly, he unfastened them and slid his hand down. 

A noise somewhere between a whine and yelp left her mouth and Levi chuckled in her ear.

“You haven’t done this before,” he said. 

“I’ve done this before,” she shot back. “No one else has.”

His fingers pressed against her most sensitive place and she moaned, trying to turn to kiss him. His arms stayed locked around her, though, and his hand continued to stroke along her folds. 

“Levi,” she groaned. A finger entered her and she arched against him. When he pulled it back out, she felt empty, whining a bit. He replaced it with two fingers that curved inside her. Thought left her brain and her hips moved on their own. She rode his fingers, gasping. 

As heat built, he removed his fingers once again and she nearly exclaimed. But when he began massaging her clit in short, firm circles, her orgasm hit her. Thankfully he had a solid grip on her because she was certain her knees were about to give out. He kept his hand in her pants, cupping her throbbing flesh until her breathing calmed and she wasn’t in danger of falling over. Only then did he drag his hand out and a shudder shook her. 

Swiftly, he wiped his hand down as Joan adjusted her clothing. 

Was this going to be awkward? Levi was usually impossible to read. Mix sex into it… 

“How was that remembrance?” he asked, leaning against his desk.

“What?”

“You said you wanted to remember how to live.”

“Explosive remembrance,” Joan decided. 

“Good,” Levi nodded. Then he straightened. “I’m going to go take a shower. You should, too, you kind of smell.”

Joan just smiled, rolling her eyes. “Yes, sir,” she said. It wasn’t until later that Joan realized they hadn’t even kissed - not on the mouth. For some reason, she just knew Levi had done that on purpose. 

~*~

“Can I just say once more how happy I am that you came out last night?” Hange asked, barging into his office and hopping into the chair across from his desk.

Shit, he hadn’t locked the door. 

“You didn’t say it the first time,” he noted, not even bothering to look up from his paperwork.

“Well, I meant to.” She fiddled with her glasses for a moment and sighed, leaning back in chair and stretching her back. “You know, civilians have much better beds than we do. We should add that to the budget.”

“I absolutely do not want to listen to your sexual escapades, four-eyes,” Levi said coolly. “You’re already making my office reek of sex anyway.” Or at least, making it smell more like sex. “Didn’t anyone teach you proper hygiene?” 

Hange just smiled and Levi’s stomach dropped, hand pausing mid-word.

“What?” he asked, shortly. 

“I heard a rumor…” she said, sing-songy.

Fuck. Fuck. If dead-last had blabbed in the hour since she’d been gone, Levi would shove her head up her ass. 

“What rumor?”

“About you and a rookie…” 

Levi said nothing, debating the merits of lying. As a rule, he didn’t believe in lying. It was better to live your life as honestly as possible and if other people had a problem with your truth, fine. Fuck them. But right now, squashing Hange’s smug look would be worth a little white lie.

“What about me and a rookie?” Levi evaded in the meantime.

Hange leaned forward, hands poised on her knees. “I heard a certain dead-last rookie managed to get you on the dance floor last night.”

Oh. 

Levi gave her a blank look and neither confirmed nor denied it. Which for Hange, was answer enough. She squealed and exclaimed, “Was it a slow song or a fast song? Did you cop a feel? Given the height difference, it was probably pretty easy to sneak one in, right?”

A book sailed at her head and she dodged out of the way. Then she sighed, placing both hands on her cheeks and lowering her pouty gaze to the floor. “If only I’d kept my libido in check a bit longer - I could have seen it.”

“Four-eyes,” he got her attention. “Get the fuck out of here before I drag you by your filthy hair.”

“Oh, no need for such hostility, squirt.” She stood just as there was a knock on the door. 

“Come in,” Levi responded. As Erwin ducked in, Levi told him, “Four-eyes was just leaving.”

“Actually, I need to talk to both of you,” he said, taking a seat. Hange followed suit and Levi pushed his paperwork away. “The Northern Training Corps has fallen sick,” he explained. 

“All of them?” Hange asked.

“A few but it’s spreading rapidly.” Erwin dropped a stack of papers on the desk and handed a page to Hange.

“Fever, diarrhea, chills,” Hange read off and then shrugged. “This sounds like the flu, commander. Given the temperature up there, this isn’t uncommon.”

“Read the last line,” he instructed. 

“Oh.”

“What,” Levi asked, forcing himself not to snatch the paper from Hange’s hand. 

“Yellowing of the eyes,” Hange explained. “Jaundice?” 

Erwin gestured to the stack of paper. “All of them present with that symptom. The surrounding village had a few cases but that’s all we know. No casualties in the the training corps… so far.”

“What do you want us to do about it?” Levi asked. Sick trainees weren’t high on his priority list.

“I’ve found a doctor in the city who says it’s probably yellow fever. Very contagious. I want someone to escort him up north but the fewer people, the better. I don’t need anyone coming back here infectious and spreading this into the city.” 

Hange frowned down at the paper and handed it back to Erwin. “I’d go but I lost two squad members, sir. I need to figure out their replacements and train them before the next expedition.”

“I’ll go,” Levi said. “You’re so dirty, you’d definitely bring back something nasty.”

“When was the last time you were sick, Levi?” Hange asked, scrunching her nose. “You’re so clean but I bet your immune system is weak because it’s had no practice.”

“After I come back, I’ll show you weak, four-eyes,” Levi promised her, blandly.

Then she grew serious. “If the conditions are as bad as you say, commander, it might be worthwhile to also send Joan Mulligan.”

Levi glanced at Erwin sharply, hoping he wasn’t considering that suggestion. Levi still didn’t know what to make about what they had done earlier that morning. It has been… very fulfilling. But stupid. Levi knew better than to let off steam with a subordinate. More than that… one he’d gone out of his way to cheer up. Levi couldn’t explain his actions and that made them all the more troublesome. The trip north would take a couple days, even just one way. The idea of being stuck around her for that long made his stomach knot. The idea of bringing her into a disease-infested area made his stomach downright writhe. 

Erwin stroked his chin. “You think she could be of some assistance?” 

“I know she’s good at field medicine, but her specialty is disease,” Hange explained, shrugging. “She grew up on a farm. Fevers were more common than arms bitten off by Titans.”

Still, Erwin stroked his chin thoughtfully.

~*~

Joan landed on the tree as gracefully as she could, given that her grapple had come loose, mid-swing. Shit. If she’d been out in the field, that kind of sloppy work would get her killed. The rest of the rookies had opted for some extra training. Mike had offered to oversee it and Joan was sure it was because he was scouting for a new addition to his squad. 

Jaime’s entire squad had been decimated and so had another one, minus a lone survivor. The survivor would be reassigned to an established squad and two new people would be promoted to squad leaders. From there, two new squads would form. Rumors were circulating about who they would be. Other squad leaders would be looking to fill in gaps in their own squads. Since none of the rookies had a chance of being promoted to squad leader, it was safe to scout them until other decisions were made.

“Not bad for fresh meat!” Mike shouted as Jericho sliced and diced. 

“We’ve all been on two expeditions!” Jericho replied, bracing himself firmly against the tree, grapple still embedded right above him. 

“Still rookies!” Mike said, his voice echoing amid the trees. 

“So, when do you stop being rookies?” Jericho shouted back.

“When we get even fresher meat!”

Jericho pulled himself up onto the branch Joan was on. “I think he means when the next batch of trainees show up,” she explained. 

“Ah,” Jericho whined, brushing wet hair out of his face. “But that won’t be for a couple of months. I’m sick of being called a rookie.”

Joan shot a grapple and right before she jumped she said, “It beats being called dead-last!”

Sore and tired, she dragged herself to the shower. At the end of the day on an expedition, after a day of constant riding, fighting, and surviving, she was full of energy and unable to sleep. At the end of a three hour, voluntary practice session, she felt like death. At least the shower helped, as she scrubbed away the dirt and grime. And with it, Levi’s scent. It had clung to her skin, on her right shoulder where he had panted into her flesh as she stroked him. Now it was gone. 

On her walk back to the barracks, she paused and looked at the headquarters main building. Somewhere in that cluster of rooms in the east wing, Levi had a bedroom. She wondered what he was doing right then. Probably paperwork - he probably wasn’t in his bedroom at all. 

Joan forced her feet to move forward. Nope. She had spent this morning in a cloud of confusion after she had left Levi. She’d replayed what they had done again and again.The guilt crushed her. What would Jaime have thought? He used to tease her about other men all the time but that had been before…

The night before the expedition, Jaime had pulled her behind the stable, into a supply closet. As they’d kissed, he’d unbuttoned her shirt and slipped a hand in. Groaning, Joan had pulled him closer and kissed him deeper. Hands had wandered and when Jaime had begun to unfasten her pants, she’d finally put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back. 

“I’m not ready,” she’d told him. And he’d kissed her sweetly, brushing her hair out of her face. 

“That’s okay, Joanny,” he’d said, pulling her close and kissing the top of her head. She’d buried her face in his chest and breathed him in. “Hey,” he’d begun, pulling away and looking down at her. He’d put a hand under her chin and said, “You don’t have to say anything back, but I just wanted you to know I love you.” When her eyes had gone wide and she’d gasped, he’d pressed another gentle kiss to her mouth. “Sh, sh, Joanny, you’ll ruin the moment.”

And she would have. Now that he was gone, she was glad she hadn’t stuttered out an excuse for why she couldn’t say it back or worse, told him “thank you.” 

But now, all she could do was compare. She’d known Jaime all her life. She had felt completely safe with him. But she didn’t feel comfortable enough to do that. Yet Captain Levi, who she barely knew and who confused her with his cryptic words and mercurial actions and cold personality, she’d practically jumped on. Worse, yet… For all Jaime’s loving kisses and sweet words, his touch had been an ember compared to Levi’s deft fingers, burning like a brush fire. They hadn’t even kissed and she was so overwhelmed by the memory of him that she vaguely considered backtracking and having a cold shower. 

And then she got to her bunk and found a pair of leather shoes positioned in the middle of her mattress with a note that merely said, “My office.”

Lust and guilt slammed into her in equal parts. She was torn between throwing the shoes under her bed, and ignoring the fact that this morning had ever happened, and running up to his office, already flushed and ready for round two.

Instead, she took her time. Changed into her uniform, straps and all. Tried on the shoes, holding first one foot up for inspection, then the other, and admiring the craftsmanship of the leather loafers. Then casually she made her way to his office. 

~*~

Is it cool that I said all that?  
Is it chill that you're in my head?  
'Cause I know that it's delicate (delicate)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song lyrics from T-Swift again. 
> 
> This chapter is almost pure smut. Sorry not sorry. I promise the plot will start again next chapter. Sort of.

Our secret moments in a crowded room  
They got no idea about me and you  
There is an indentation in the shape of you  
Made your mark on me, a golden tattoo

~*~

Levi had left his office door open in anticipation of Joan making her way up there. What he had not anticipated was Hange and Erwin both stopping in at least twice to ask dumb questions. Which was exactly why he kept his door closed to begin with. 

“I heard you’re taking the dead-last rookie to the north, huh?” Mike asked, leaning against the doorframe and giving a little sniffle. “I guess she’s good for something besides being Titan bait.”

Oh look. Another unwanted guest. 

“Hange suggested it and Erwin ordered it,” Levi said simply. His neck was starting to get a pinch, so he sat back and stretched. 

“I saw her today - the rookies wanted some training, so I figured I’d lend a hand.”

“And find someone to replace Alice,” Levi reminded him. 

“That, too…” Mike crossed his arms and lowered his voice. “I couldn’t help but notice she smelled a bit… off, you know?”

“Your scent-obsession is… creepy, you know?” he taunted back. 

Mike chuckled and walked into the office, but only glanced at the desk chair. Instead, he took a huge inhale through his nose, held it, and let it out through his mouth. “Ah,” was all he said. 

“This is none of your business,” Levi replied, impassively. But his thumb still tapped against his thigh in agitation. Hitting him would be a bad idea.

“Probably,” Mike admitted. “I mean, I’m debating putting her on my squad but maybe not. You knows?” He reached out, tapping Levi’s pristine desk with his knuckles. “Listen, I don’t want to cause an issue - I don’t think there is an issue. But this is the first time I’ve been aware of you screwing a subordinate so I figured I could pass along some wisdom, you know? Personally gained wisdom, if you know what I mean? Keep it private. Keep it casual. Accusations of favoritism are a powerful thing. If she dies, you can’t get more emotional than if she was a regular old soldier. And for fuck’s sake, don’t get her knocked up. We lose enough good soldiers in the field - we don’t need them lost to motherhood.”

Levi’s scowl stayed in place even after Mike left. He really didn’t like other people knowing his business. Twirling a pen in his hand, he considered the man’s words. This was the first time he’d slept with a subordinate. The other women had been civilians here and there - no one more than a handful of times before he moved on, followed by months of celibacy as work and disinterest got in the way of his libido. He was going to have to be more subtle. Set ground rules moving forward. Did he even want to move forward?

“Sir?” Joan lingered in the doorway and with one glance he knew the answer to that question. Yes. He wanted her again. In multiple positions. 

“Come in, close the door.” Oh good, his voice was even. 

Hesitantly, she closed the door and took a seat. Her fingers twisted in her lap but she met his cool gaze. “Thank you for the shoes, sir,” she said. 

“It’s shameful how little the military allowance is and you’ll wear out those boots sooner rather than later if those are your only shoes,” Levi noted, deflecting her gratitude. “We leave tomorrow,” he jumped right in. 

“Um… for where, sir?”

“There is an outbreak of yellow fever in the northern training corps. We are escorting a doctor from the city to the training headquarters.”

Joan leaned forward in the chair and tilted her head. “Yellow fever? Are they sure?”

“According to reports,” Levi shrugged. “I don’t know anything about medical mumbo-jumbo.”

“Yellow fever is typically in the south,” she explained. “It’s transmitted by mosquitoes. Someone would have had to have gotten infected in either the southern or central part of country and carried it up north…That’s quite the misfortunate coincidence.”

“Like I said - I don’t know anything.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Winter gear is in the west basement. We rarely need it so it might be filthy. Get enough gear for both of us and clean it thoroughly. We leave at dawn in two days.”

“Yes, sir,” she nodded. A section of wet hair fell in her face and she instinctively pushed it back. Levi followed her movements.

“You’ve recently showered,” he noted. 

Joan gave him a confused smile. “You like to state the obvious, don’t you?”

“You like to be a smart-ass, don’t you?”

“It’s a guilty pleasure of mine.”

And she was becoming a guilty pleasure of his. 

“Stand up,” he commanded levelly. 

Her eyebrows scrunched together and she stumbled to her feet. “I’m sorry if I offended you, sir,” she stuttered. 

Almost on instinct, she moved to salute, just as he ordered, “Strip.”

A heat bloomed inside her, low in her belly. Her hands trembled as she tried to undo the buckles. Making a deep tsk noise with his tongue, Levi stood and stalked around the desk. He should lend the poor rookie a hand. Pushing her hands away, Levi expertly released her from the straps, pulled her shirt from her pants, and slid a palm up her shirt, feeling the contours of her toned stomach. No military man or woman was without a strong core. 

He pushed her gently back against the desk until she leaned on it. Then, he unbuttoned her shirt. Finally his curiosity about what she wore around her neck was sated - two rings of gold. He’d have to ask her later why she wore them. Or maybe not… That was probably invasive. 

She hadn’t bound her breasts, but she was wearing a breast-band. Levi slid a finger under the fabric, debating. Did he want it off? Did he want it on? Why not… both? He pushed the cloth up almost to her collarbone to reveal her breasts. 

Humming in appreciation, he circled a thumb around a pretty pink nipple. Her stomach clenched, the muscles tensing and rippling. Dropping his mouth to her breast, he kissed the swell of flesh and sucked her nipple into his mouth. 

Joan gasped and cupped the back of his head. His eyes had fluttered closed as he tongued her, but now he forced them open because he wanted to watch her face. Her cheeks were deep red, her moist mouth parted slightly. When his teeth grazed her flesh, she bit her lip. He wanted to kiss her. In fact, he pulled away with a soft pop fully intending to kiss her. But then his one head caught up with the other and he realized how much of a bad idea that would be. Besides, he could put his mouth to more productive uses. 

He’d personally scrubbed the floor earlier in the day so he felt comfortable enough kneeling before her. 

In a moment, her boots were off and her pants were around her ankles. He dragged his hands down the length of her legs and pressed a kiss to her hip. Choosing a leg, he pulled her ankle free and tossed it over his shoulder. Then he buried his face in the curls between her legs. 

A strangled gasp came from her mouth and she grabbed his shoulder in one hand and the desk in the other for support. Her back arched and her hips spasmed, pushing her closer to his mouth. Levi pulled away and chuckled against her thigh. “You want to do this yourself, dead-last?”

“No, sir,” she murmured, gripping his shoulder tighter. “You definitely have things under control. I will follow your lead.”

“Tch,” Levi smirked and slid a single finger into her. When she cursed, Levi noted, “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say a naughty word.”

“Words are cheap,” Joan breathed. “Actions are the only thing that matters.”

Levi pushed another finger in, curling them around to stroke her along the front. A strangled groan tore from her mouth and when he sucked her most sensitive flesh into his mouth, she pushed her fist into her mouth and bit down to keep a loud shout from ringing out. Levi increased the pace until Joan rode his fingers, gasping with each thrust until… her body burst and her vision darkened. 

Slowly, he removed his fingers and stood. 

~*~

Joan watched him wipe his fingers down with a handkerchief, then wipe his mouth. 

Who knew the clean freak was willing to do that? Joan had heard enough naughty bets among the other soldiers. Some were convinced he was a dirty freak, others thought he was completely grossed out by sex. Joan didn’t know if that counted as dirty or freakish, but she had certainly enjoyed it. And was ready to reciprocate. 

Taking a deep breath, she approached Levi and moved to kneel. He caught her by the upper arms and shook his head. “Get dressed.”

Oh. She glanced down and resisted the urge to massage the sudden pain in her chest. Levi’s normally neutral expression darkened a bit as he noticed her reaction. 

“We are too exposed,” he explained, rubbing her arms briskly. The movements were jerky compared to how gracefully he’d been massaging her core just moments before but it was oddly comforting - then again, comfort from Levi was, by definition, odd. “If someone comes, it will look suspicious if we take too long to answer the door.”

Joan quickly replaced her clothing as Levi watched. “If you were worried about exposure, you shouldn’t have taken my shirt off,” she noted. 

“I needed to see,” he said, simply.

“See what?”

“Those tits.”

Joan paused her buttoning and tilted her head up at Levi, a small smirk on her face. “Ah.”

“Now suck my dick,” he ordered, taking a seat in his office chair. 

Her smirk turned mischievous as she rounded the desk. Just as she knelt, a knock sounded. They both bolted to their feet. Levi looked them both over quickly, as well as the rest of the office. He reached across his desk and, grabbed a piece of paperwork, and folded it. 

“Come in,” he announced, before turning to Joan, shoving the folded paper at her, and saying, “Get everything on this list. We leave at dawn in two days.”

Joan nodded automatically just as Erwin opened the door and glanced between the two of them.

Fuck - Joan’s pale skin was always such a tattle-tale. Was she flushed? Did she have “slut” etched into her forehead?

“Mulligan, I see Levi has briefed you,” Erwin noted. That’s one way to put it. Joan forced her gaze to stay on Erwin’s face. Do not glance at Levi. Do not be obvious. 

“Yes, commander.” She held the list up. “I better get to work!” And then she retreated as fast she could without being suspicious. When she got to the first floor of the headquarters, she opened the list to find… a blanket budget request. Oh. Smart. 

~*~

The next day, Joan meandered down to the basement looking for the supplies for the trip. The basement was grotesque and it was no wonder - this headquarters was located so far south that winter gear was so rarely needed. Joan dug into the first box she found, figuring she would just start sorting through everything first and foremost. Coats, boots… snow shoes? 

Joan had never been up north. Her village had gotten some snow but mostly just flurries that left a thin layer of white for a couple of hours. But the warmer, the better, right? It wasn’t until she held up a coat that she realized she didn’t know Levi’s size. She could probably gauge it using her own body, right? He was shorter than her, but broader. She lifted another coat up… yeah, this one would work. She’d have to wash it, though. It smelled musty.

Slowly her pile of supplies built up and she transported it up and out to the courtyard so she could wipe it down.

Halfway into the afternoon, she was still cleaning.

“You’re going to need to do this one again,” a voice commented behind her. 

Jumping, Joan stood and saluted on instinct. “Captain Levi.” 

Her face flushed, remembering what they had done yesterday. Especially as she glanced at his mouth, which was cut in a flat line. She wondered what those lips would feel like against her own. She vowed to find out. 

Oh. He was talking. 

“Sorry, sir, what was that?” 

His hand shot out and smacked her upside the head, not harshly. 

“Pay attention, dead-last,” he drawled. “This,” he lifted a pair of snow pants up, “Is still filthy.” He tossed it at her and rubbed his hand with a handkerchief. 

“How many of those do you have?” she asked, catching the pants. 

“Enough.”

“Cryptic.”

“Sir.”

“What?”

“You dropped the sir,” Levi noted, crossing his arms. “Don’t do that. Not in public, at least.”

Eyes wide, Joan glanced around, making sure no one was in earshot. The courtyard was empty but Levi - Captain Levi - was right. She was getting too casual. When had she started doing that? Had she slipped up before? 

“We need to set ground rules,” Levi continued. 

Joan folded the pants and put them in the dirty pile. “Well, what rules do you usually set, sir?” 

“I don’t,” he said simply. Joan glanced up, startled. She tilted her head at her captain but he was still a closed book. 

“You don’t set rules or... ?” 

“Or.” He blinked at her. 

Mouth agape, Joan leaned in and in a whisper asked, “Sir, are you a… virgin?”

The smack upside the head was a bit harsher this time. Okay. That answered her question. So he hadn’t gotten involved with anyone in the military or, at least, he hadn’t gotten involved with someone repeatedly. Joan didn’t know if she should be flattered but… that knowledge did make her head spin in a pleasant way. Made her a little dizzy, in fact. 

“Okay, sir, ground rules. Have any in mind?” 

Levi discreetly made sure the conversation was private. “Never come to my quarters. That can’t be explained away. Only come to my office with a valid reason to meet me, if you want to have sex. I will send for you with a valid excuse, if I want to have sex.” Joan could feel her cheeks reddening. He was so blunt. She knew that about him, but in that moment she expected him to pull out a list of rules and responsibilities. Maybe a planned schedule. How romantic. “Preventing pregnancy.”

Joan waited for him to continue before she realized he was actually asking a question… by making a statement. Sometimes his monotone really confused her. Then her brain spit out all the lessons her mother had taught her: “Obviously, no orgasming inside the vagina. There is a way to track the menstrual cycle to estimate peak and low fertility days. Intercourse involving penetration of the mouth or anus are both risk free in terms of pregnancy. If pregnancy does occur, there is a tonic that can cause a miscarriage. The side effects are intense but the tonic is very effective.”

Blinking slowly at her, Levi said nothing. 

“So… pregnancy will be prevented,” Joan concluded. 

“You’ve thought a lot about this,” he observed.

Did he think she was some kind of slut? Joan crossed her own arms and stood up straighter. “I had a doctor for a father and village healer for a mother. I delivered my first baby at twelve years old - incidentally, the baby was my youngest brother because my mother was the only midwife in the nearest three villages, my father was visiting the Underground, and I knew my shit. My parents had eight kids altogether. Also, in a rural village like mine, getting pregnant out of wedlock would ruin a young girl’s life.”

“Ah, you memorized another textbook.”

“You could say that,” Joan said, relaxing. “Any other rules?”

“... I expect monogamy.”

“Same.” Was that even a question? 

“You will tell no one.”

Oh wow. That hurt. “Are you ashamed of me?”

“No but rumors within the Survey Corps are already bad and rumors outside the military, among the civilians, are even worse,” Levi explained. “If either of us makes a misstep and it can even be vaguely traced back to our trysts, it is a detriment. We both will make mistakes in our jobs. That’s a given. We can’t control that. We can control whether people blame it on our sex lives by making sure they don’t know about our sex lives.” Joan nodded slowly. That hurt… less. “Any rules you want to set?”

“Stop buying me things.” It came out of her mouth before she could help it. “I mean, sir, I’m grateful for the shoes but I can buy my own things.”

His eyebrow twitched once, very, very slightly but he nodded solemnly. “I understand.”

“Other than that… I’m satisfied with the rules. Sir.”

Someone walked into the yard, passing through to the next building. Levi glanced behind him, then turned back to Joan. “Come to my office after dinner. We will finish the briefing for the trip.”

“What more do we need to go over, sir?”

“Our briefing finished prematurely, dead-last. There is quite a lot to still go over.”

Joan frowned but saluted. “Yes, sir.”

It wasn’t until Levi had sauntered off and she was back to scrubbing the pants that she realized what he was trying to say. Then, she started scrubbing faster. 

~*~

When Joan had listed off all the ways to prevent pregnancy, Levi had mentally frozen. All he could think of was Jaime’s arm around her shoulders and Joan not pushing him off for once in the entire time she’d been on base. Something had changed after that first expedition. The energy around the two of them had changed. 

Levi had wondered… exactly how far they’d gotten in the couple of weeks between then and Jaime’s untimely death. Then, he’d wanted to bash his head into a solid wall for being concerned about it. What did it even matter? If she’d been with another guy, that was hardly any of his business. Besides. Jaime was dead and Joan had told him no one had touched her the way Levi had in his office the day before. So, it was a moot point and none of Levi’s business and… 

Fuck. He was jealous. 

Jealous of a dead man. 

What kind of bullshit was that? 

Lingering in the door of the mess hall, Levi debated the merits of getting his food to go and enjoying some peace and quiet in his office. Then Hange caught sight of him and he knew he’d never be able to escape unscathed. Fine. He’d eat with the ruffians. 

“So you leave tomorrow morning?” Hange asked as he took a seat next to her, plate in hand.

“At dawn.” Levi wiped the cutlery down quickly and then meticulously cut up his food, taking small bites. 

In the Underground, when Kenny had first rescued him, he’d been so starved that he’d torn into the first meal he’d had with such vigor that he’d puked. Nothing like finally filling your stomach and then emptying it just as quickly. Kenny had passed him some water and told him to “slow his chops, kid.” He has only slowed down marginally, still worried Kenny would change his mind and take the plate away. As meals became more of a regular occurrence, and Kenny had expected him to take daily showers, Levi had developed a fondness for being squeaky clean. Shoving food in your mouth more than likely result in crumbs and sauce everywhere. Even after Kenny had abandoned him, and he struggled for food and shelter, his table manners stayed orderly. 

“Don’t catch anything while you’re up there, okay?” Hange joked, elbowing him. 

The movement caused Levi to miss his mouth and shove the potato into his cheek. As he wiped the food from his face, he counted slowly down from ten, listing all the reasons why stabbing Hange with the fork was ill-advised. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” was all he said. 

As he handed his plate off to the cleaning staff, he glanced around the mess hall. Joan was sitting with the other rookies, apparently in a heated debate about something, though Levi was too far away to hear the topic. She seemed to still have a full plate of food in front of her. Good. Levi was hoping to stop by the showers and quickly rinse off the day before… well, before Joan stopped by.

Assuming she stopped by. 

Levi paused to consider that thought. Surely she would come, right? She had enjoyed what they had done. Her pupils grew wide whenever she looked at him. She’d agreed to the ground rules. Levi made his way into the men’s showers, stripped quickly, and scrubbed up. But just because they had a standing agreement didn’t mean they were at each other’s beck and call. If she wasn’t in the mood after dinner, she might not bother to stop by. 

Rinsing off, Levi scoffed at the wall in front of him. 

Was he really getting nervous about whether or not a rookie was going to take him up on his offer for sex? What was he? A teenage boy, pondering rejection by his crush?

He ran a comb through his hair without parting it, slicking it back and off his face, replaced his clothing and went back to his office. 

Joan was waiting outside the door, sitting against the wall. As he turned the corner, she stood and saluted. Levi stopped walking and simply took in the sight of her, oddly relieved she’d chosen to come. Under his gaze, her cheeks turned pink. After he had finished with her yesterday, her whole face had been scarlet. He wanted to see that color again.

“You finished cleaning the supplies?” he asked, opening the door and letting her in. 

“Yes, sir. I hope everything will be to your satisfaction, sir.”

He paused, hand on door knob, midway closed and considered that innuendo. She must feel so clever. “If it’s not,” he began, coolly. “I’m sure you can just do it again.”

Joan gulped.

Oh, look. Scarlet began to stain her face, high on her cheekbones. 

~*~

For a man of few words, he was good at them. His hair was still damp, slicked back but in the process of drying and falling into his face. He had showered recently. She almost made a verbal note of it, but instead she pulled a pen and pad of paper from her pocket. 

“The briefing, sir.” She held up the writing instruments. 

Levi smirked, rounded the desk and sat down. Joan followed him to the desk, flipping the pad open but not taking a seat. 

“The briefing,” Levi stated. For a moment, they just stared at each other, a silent battle of wills. “We should start where we left off.”

“And where was that, sir? Can you refresh my memory?”

Then Levi made a tsk sound in the front of his mouth, pushed the chair away from the desk, and said, “I believe you had just finished orgasming on my face and you were about to suck my dick.” His hands began unfastening his pants just as Joan rounded the desk and put the pad and pen down. Good, his bluntness hadn’t scared her away. He sometimes had that effect on women. 

“I believe you are correct,” she agreed, coming to stand in between Levi’s legs. 

Running her hands through his damp hair, she dug her fingers into his scalp. He made a pleased exhale. Encouraged, she began to massage down towards the base of the skull, before cupping his neck. She tilted his head and leaned down. 

For the past day, she’d wondered what he would taste like. Not in that way… Well, yes in that way. But she wanted more than anything to feel his lips on hers. 

Instead, he tilted his head back and to the side, giving her access to his neck. Joan paused, a tidal wave of confusion followed by a sharp pain coursing through her mind. She glanced up at his face. He was observing her out of the corner of his eye. His face was steady. Okay. Point made. 

With an edge of anger spurred on by rejection, she yanked off the cravat, undid the top two buttons of his shirt and buried her face into the crook of his neck, sucking in his flesh and giving it a slight nip. His body jerked, and he reached up, grasping her hair and holding her there. So he didn’t want to kiss her but she was free to bite him a bit? Joan didn’t know how to feel about that and decided not to care. Or at least, to pretend not to care until she was lost in ecstasy and really truly, only gave a fuck about climaxing.

Her fingers found the buttons of his shirt and after she popped another one, Levi stilled her with a hand over hers. “I want to see,” she told him, echoing his words from the other day. His hand dropped. She made quick work of the shirt, not pulling it off completely but opening it and pushing it down his biceps a bit. Then she stood back and admired.

Fuck… Was this what a decade of using the 3D maneuvering gear did to the human body? Or was Levi just not human? Not only were his abs cut in perfect rows, his pectorals were strictly defined, and his obliques strained under his skin. 

She dropped a hand down, feeling each ridge. Like warm velvet over stone. 

Levi watched her, staring up at her as she explored. His face was carefully blank, but as she dipped a fingertip around his nipple, a muscle jumped in his jaw. 

“Are you done sightseeing?” he asked. His neutral tone betrayed the spark in his eyes that came to life as she smiled slyly at him. 

Emboldened, Joan leaned down. Licking along his collarbone, she bit into the tough flesh of his shoulder, easing the sting of the bite with a few kisses. A hum of encouragement came from Levi’s throat. If she hadn’t been so close, she wouldn’t have heard it. His hand found her hair again, weaving but not pulling. When she tongued his nipple, the grip tightened almost painfully. Joan decided she liked it, so she kept swiping her tongue over the tight flesh.

Then, she knelt, letting her mouth explore further down. She dragged her tongue between the ridges of his pectorals, down into the stark outline of his abs. They flexed involuntarily and Levi gave a short exhale. While his chest was almost completely hairless, there was a line of black hair that lead down into his unbuttoned pants. 

Joan ran a finger through it. And Levi caught her hand. “Stop teasing me.”

“Is that an order, sir?” she asked, pulling her hand from his grasp and kissing his stomach. 

“D-damn straight, dead-last.”

Her heart soared as she heard that little catch in his voice. She wanted to hear it again. Finishing what he started, she unfastened the remaining buttons on his pants and he sprang out. She paused. The day before, she had held him in her hand and stroked him but it was much different to see it up close. 

“Don’t feel obligated,” Levi said softly. His hand reached out and pushed some hair away from her face, then he cupped her cheek. Joan wanted so badly for him to bend down and kiss her. But when he just continued to rub his thumb along the apple of her cheek, she knew that wasn’t something he was willing to do… for whatever reason. She thought about his words. 

“I don’t feel obligated. I’ve just never done this before and you were so great and I want to make you feel just as good.”

“Ah,” Levi smirked. “Don’t worry. Practice makes perfect, rookie.”

Joan rolled her eyes and grasped him. The smirk disappeared, replaced by parted lips and half-lidded eyes. Already moisture was leaking from the very tip and she smiled, dipping her head to lick it up. The salt on her tongue wasn’t what she’d expected but it wasn’t unpleasant. So, she dipped her head again, but this time she took him into her mouth. Levi’s hips instinctively jumped, pushing him even deeper. 

Wracking her brain, she tried to remember the jokes her uncles had made in the taverns about oral sex. It wasn’t just bobbing her head up and down like she was doing now, right? There was something about sucking… 

Hollowing her cheeks, she created suction as she bobbed down again. She was rewarded by a low hum from Levi as he grasped her hair. As she pulled back up, she made eye contact with him. She had only ever seen his cheeks alabaster, but now there was a deep pink on the very top of his cheekbones. As she dipped again, sucking in, his eyes fluttered closed, beautiful black lashes fluttering against his cheeks. She sped up the pace and he gasped. 

How far could she go? 

Slowly, she pushed him in as far as she could go. Her nose brushed the hairs at his base and his hand began gripping her hair almost painfully. In response, she gripped his thighs and brought her mouth up to the tip, swirled her tongue around his head, and sucked him right back in, quickly. As her head bobbed, she tasted more salt and felt encouraged. 

“Joan…” Levi muttered.

“What?” she asked, pulling away. 

He grunted. “I was just…”

“Saying my name in the heat of passion?” she joked.

He twisted his grip on her hair and pushed her back down, wet flesh smacking against her cheek. Joan laughed low in the back of her throat and got back to work. As she did, Levi explained, “I was close, dead-last.”

Joan made a noise around his dick, acknowledging. So, he’d been close. Joan considered her options. Keep going and finish him? Keep teasing him and prolong this? She chose the latter option. The office was filled with the wet sound of her mouth and Levi’s short grunts. Every so often, he would go too deep and a short gag would force its way out of Joan’s mouth. It wasn’t unpleasant but it also wasn’t something she wanted to do more than once or twice. As the grunts got closer and closer, Joan prepared herself. And when he let out one long groan, she felt the wetness in her mouth and forced her throat to relax. 

He let go of her hair as his hips stilled and she leaned back. Fuck. His body was lavishly draped over the chair, his legs spread wide to accommodate her, his bare chest flexing with each deep breath, his face blotchy with two strips of red along his cheeks but pale otherwise, his dick still coated in her saliva, still hard but beginning to droop to lay along his stomach. 

Quite the sight to behold. 

Joan felt privileged. 

And then, like a book slamming closed, his expression was schooled into its normal neutrality and he sat up straighter. He looked down at her and… patted her head. 

Joan blinked up at him, trying to make sense of that. Was she… an obedient dog? She licked her lips and tried to keep the frown from her face.

~*~

That… that had been most certainly not been the most skilled blow job he’d ever received but for some reason, it had blown his mind more than any he’d had before. It took incredibly too much control to come back to his senses and as he looked down at Joan, sweet, beautiful Joan, with her sun-kissed hair and her little freckles, and bright blue eyes, all he could think to do was reach out and pat her head. She had liked that as a kid, she hadn’t objected to it as an adult, and it just seemed… like their thing. 

Abruptly, she stood. The change in perspective nearly made his head spin and he frowned. Something was wrong…?

“Dead-last,” he began, tucking himself in his pants and fastening them up. 

“Dawn, right?” she asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and heading for the door. 

“Dead-last, what’s wrong?” He hopped up and tried to followed her to the door. 

“Why won’t you kiss me?” she asked, spinning around.

Levi didn’t say anything for a moment. Was he supposed to coddle her? Make excuses? Did women want that - platitudes so they could keep up the illusion of romanticism? Then he looked at her a bit closer and decided she was worth more than excuses. “Kissing is more intimate than sex, Joan.” She seemed startled by his use of her given name. He couldn’t tell if that was a shame or not. “Soldiers die more often than they survive. I’m a rarity. Hange is a rarity. Mike is a rarity. It’s a small percentage that lives more than a handful of years in this corps. But any day, our ticket can be up. If one day my ticket is up - how will you react?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“At least you’re honest,” Levi noted. He crossed his arms across his bare chest. He really needed to button his shirt. This would be harsh, but necessary, Levi decided. “Tell me… do you think letting Jaime go would have been easier if you hadn’t kissed him?”

She slumped against the door and didn’t meet his eyes. “That crossed a line,” she said softly. 

“No, it didn’t. It’s an honest question. The truth doesn’t have a line.”

Joan didn’t say anything for several minutes, but she wrapped her arms around herself and didn’t leave, either. Finally, she tightened her embrace of herself and shrugged. “I don’t know if kissing made it harder,” she finally confessed. “It certainly didn’t make it easier.” There was a long pause and she slid to sit on the floor. “He loved me.”

“That was very apparent,” Levi said, coming to sit next to her. 

“No,” she shook her head. “He told me that he loved me. He actually said the words - he was in love with me. I think that’s what made it harder. I didn’t love him and then he died. I don’t know if I would have come to love him. I’d like to think I would have but now… I’ll never know. Maybe he would have made me happy and now that’s gone. And at the very least… he deserved to be loved back and he deserves to be mourned by someone who loved him.” She tilted her head back against the door. 

“He’s dead, Joan.” She flinched at his blunt words. The captain sure didn’t know how to pull his punches. “What makes you think any of this matters?”

Joan gave a mirthless half-laugh. “I really don’t know. It feels like it matters.”

“It feels like it matters because it lets you keep wallowing,” Levi explained. “Don’t underestimate the lull of self-pity.” With a deep, suffering sigh, Levi reached around and pulled Joan up against him. Her head landed on his bare chest and she tensed but didn’t move away. “If you get attached to me - or I to you - and one of us dies, we will fall victim to guilt. Things like marriage, and kids, and stability… those are hard enough for civilians to achieve. For soldiers, almost impossible. For scouts, truly, truly impossible. Our lives are not our own. Getting attached will only lead down a road of wracking yourself full of “what if” delusions. So no - I will not kiss you.”

As her body relaxed against him, Levi held in a sigh. Crisis averted. He cared about this woman, at least enough to want her happy. And if he had the power to make her happy, he would do it. He hoped what he said made sense. He was generally terrible at verbalizing much and his passive face made non-verbal communication even more unreliable. 

The sun was drooping in the sky. He’d need to light the oil lamp by the desk or the candles on the back cabinet. Joan seemed to notice the change in lighting, too. 

“I should go,” she said but didn’t move. Levi didn’t move, either. He just drank in the sight of the top of her head. Maybe it was the lighting, but her golden highlights seemed even brighter. Strips of light, glowing in the dusk. He caught himself reaching down to kiss her hair. That was a bad idea and he really needed to take his own advice. Instead, he pulled her closer for just a second more and moved to disentangle their bodies. 

“I’ll see you at dawn, sir,” Joan said, and she left. 

~*~

Carve your name into my bedpost  
’Cause I don't want you like a best friend  
Only bought this dress so you could take it off  
Take it oh, ha, ha, ha-ah  
Inescapable, I'm not even gonna try  
And if I get burned, at least we were electrified


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poem by Inez George Gridley.
> 
> More smut with a dash of plot. Just a dash. A small helping.

The doctor was an angry man  
It was a common sight   
To see him leave his lighted door  
To battle in the night. 

He fought the storms, he fought the roads,  
His daily chore was strife.  
He had a running feud with Death  
That lasted all his life. 

~*~

The doctor was old, just as short as Levi, but twice as big around. He also coughed loudly, wetly, and without using a handkerchief. The spittle was noticeable. 

Levi sat next to him, shoulders tightening every time Dr. Killian hacked. 

Joan hid a smile in the high collar of her uniform jacket, and kept her gaze firmly planted out the window at all the new sights. She’d never been this far north and as they kept pushing forward, she was surprised by how hilly everything got. In her village, the ground had been flat. She could stand in the middle of a barley field and see straight across it to the next village over. 

Her stomach gave a stubborn growl and Levi popped out of his clean-freak stupor to cast a glance at her. She gave him a small smile and hoped it conveyed that she wasn’t that hungry. The kitchen on base hadn’t been open when they set out this morning and while the doctor had eaten, if the crumbs on his shirt were any indication, Joan and Levi had been without food for most of the day. 

To get her mind off the hunger, Joan tried to make conversation with Dr. Killian. “It’s quite a bout of bad luck, isn’t it?” she began. “I mean, the chances of someone contracting yellow fever, not infecting anyone in the interior during the incubation period, and then unleashing it so far north? What are the chances?”

Dr. Killian turned beady eyes to Joan. “A lot more common than you’d think,” was all he said. His eyes slid away and went back to staring out the window. 

Frowning, Joan said, “I grew up in the south and yellow fever was rare, even down there.”

“That’s nice,” he replied in a tone like he was placating a child that had shown him a dead animal and said, “Look what I found!”

And… Joan stopped trying to make conversation after that. An insult was on the tip of her tongue but Levi was staring a hole into her head and she knew to keep her mouth shut. 

It wasn’t until the carriage driver stopped out the very edge of town and told them he needed to feed and water the horses before they continued, that Joan let out a frustrated breath. “What. An. Ass!” she hissed at Levi after they all went their separate ways - Dr. Killian wanting meat and having the money to pay for it and Levi and Joan relying on the mission budget and settling for a quick meal in a seedy tavern.

“He is… most certainly a filthy pig,” he agreed. 

“Where did the commander find him? Why him? There are so many other doctors in the city that would have been better! I could have given him recommendations!” Joan stomped around. Levi had taken a seat at the bar, methodically wiping his hands with a handkerchief but Joan was too amped up to sit. 

“Did you see the way he looked at me?”

“Like you were shit under his shoe?”

“Yes! Tell me I’m not allowed to punch him.”

“You’re not allowed to punch him… while he’s on the military’s payroll.”

Joan plopped down on the bar stool next to him, leaning heavily on the bar. “Such an ass,” she muttered, darkly. 

“You’re not going to get any disagreement from me,” Levi said, finally putting away the handkerchief. 

“All clean?” she joked.

Levi gave her a bland stare and then flagged down the bartender to place an order. “Most people in the Underground had better hygiene than the dear doctor.”

Joan sat up straighter and opened her mouth to ask a question but the bartender approached and they ordered their food. Joan also ordered a beer because otherwise she would punch that asshat. “Were you born in the Underground?” she asked when they were alone again.

“Yes,” he said simply. He leaned forward and propped his head on his fist. 

“Are your parents still alive?” Joan really didn’t know why she was asking these questions. It seemed like picking at an old wound but… what else would fill the silence?

“My mother died when I was young and I never knew my father.” 

“Do you mind my invasive questions?” 

That earned a small chuckle from him, though he didn’t truly smile. “Not as much as I thought I would,” he answered with his usual blunt honesty. 

“How did you meet your friends? The ones that came to the surface?”

Levi sighed, closing his eyes for a moment too long. “Farlan was with a group of guys that tried to beat my ass. I beat their ass instead and Farlan figured it was better to be my friend than my enemy. He was a good guy. Smart. So much smarter than anyone else in the Underground. Very level-headed, too. Isabel… Isabel was sweet. And rambunctious. I had seen her around and thought she was tolerable. Later, I saw her starving in an alley and took pity on her. Turns out, she was pretty intolerable.” Despite his words, his voice was light-hearted. 

“So… taking pity on girls in alleyways is kinda your thing, huh?” Joan joked, pushing his shoulder a bit. 

He scoffed. “Apparently. And it’s always a mistake.”

Joan smiled at him, heart warm. “You were very kind to me.”

He shrugged. “It was pretty clear that you didn’t belong there and you most certainly wouldn’t have lasted long without help.”

“Really? I thought I was pretty tough. I mean, for a ten year old.”

“Tch,” Levi snorted. How ungraceful. “Some pervert was going to snatch you up and sell you to other perverts. You’d have lived and died in the brothel.” Suddenly his mouth shut in a tight line and he glanced away. Joan leaned over and put a hand on his shoulder. 

“I’ll take your word for it,” she smiled as he looked over at her. “Thankfully my hero rescued me.”

“Agh,” he made a deep choking noise. “You have to stop idolizing me. It’s especially creepy now that we’re fucking.”

“Really? You don’t think it seems like it’s all come full-circle?” Joan joked. 

“Creepy,” was all he said. 

Joan, of course, disagreed. She’d certainly idolized Levi as the coolest person she’d ever known. Watching him beat up those guys was the most extraordinary sight she’d ever witnessed. It was… inspirational. As a girl, her exposure to violence had been very limited. She thought about his comment about being sold to perverts… As a child, that hadn’t even occurred to her. Her worst nightmare had been starving in the Underground. But as a woman, she now knew how bad it could have been. All the more reason to be thankful for him. 

Their food arrived and they ate in silence for a bit. “You know, if you’d come up and introduced yourself to my father, you’d have gotten the reward,” Joan told him. 

“I didn’t care about the reward,” Levi said, coolly. 

“I know,” she shrugged. “But I bet you could have used it.”

“Probably.” Levi speared a bit of potato and popped it into his mouth. “But I made due.” He paused a moment. “Your father died when Maria fell?” 

Joan blinked. She never would have thought Levi would be interested in her family. “My whole family died when Maria fell.” She was going to leave it at that, but she looked down at her empty plate and took a deep breath. “My parents wanted to stay and make sure their patients were evacuated. We waited too long though. The wagons were on their way back but… they didn’t make it in time. I watched all my siblings die. The only reason I survived is because some Survey Corps members were escorting the wagons back and one of them rode ahead. She grabbed me and pulled me up and away. I didn’t catch her name but I would recognize her face… I haven’t seen her so I’m assuming she died sometime between now and then.”

“We lost the majority of the scouts after Maria fell,” was all Levi said. They sat in silence for a bit longer as Levi continued to eat. Joan watched how meticulously he ate. It was like food was a ritual. 

“Why are you such a clean-freak?” she asked before she could think of how rude that sounded. 

“I grew up in the Underground, dead-last,” he replied simply. 

“You were a clean-freak then, too, though… right?” Her memory was blurry, but he had been so crisp back then… 

He was silent for too long. 

Joan nudged him, “I bet you were born a clean-freak, huh?”

“I lived in a one-room apartment in the Underground’s largest brothel, Joan,” he spoke softly. “My mother didn’t have much time to clean up after me or herself and after she died, there was no one. I sat in my own shit for two weeks before some guy came and took me away.” He said it matter-a-factly but his voice was hollow and Joan lost the breath in her lungs. Why had she brought that up? Her guilt only increased as he pushed his plate away, still full of food. 

Unsure what to say, she pushed the plate back at him. “You’ll regret not finishing this later,” she chided him. 

Levi glanced over the contents of the plate and then nodded. Joan watched him continue his meal in silence. The next time he pushed the plate away, it wasn’t completely empty but Joan didn’t make a comment. Instead, she stood and stretched.

“Don’t let me kill that asshole, okay?”

“Control your temper and I won’t have to,” he shot back. The tension seemed to ease but when they were back in the carriage and Dr. Killian was coughing up a storm, Levi’s fists were the ones clenching. He caught her looking and she winked. 

~*~

The next time they stopped, it was for the night. Dr. Killian approached the innkeeper and announced, “Your best room.” That was it. Levi was known for being blunt but even he would have phrased it as a request. Also, the accommodations were being paid for by the military and the budget only had enough for two rooms. Levi would kill this man if he had to room with him. Besides… Levi snuck a look at Joan, who was standing with their bags and the doctors. A night together in a bed with her would be… pleasant. 

The innkeeper passed a key to the doctor and he stomped away after telling Joan. “Bring my bag.”

“Uh…” the innkeeper gaped.

“I’m covering the cost of his room,” Levi told him, calming the man down considerably. “We also need a room, if you have one available?” As the innkeeper nodded, Levi caught Joan’s face as she walked passed him, the doctor’s bag in hand. Her teeth were clenched and she shook her head either because she was deep in disbelief or she was convincing herself not to kill him. A few moments later, coins and a key exchanged hands and Levi carried everything to the room. 

It wasn’t the filthiest place he’d ever been but it was still a sty. Dropping the bags, he wandered back into hallway, found the supply closet, and loaded his hands with a broom and a couple rags. Then, he got to work. 

“You probably should have roomed with him so that you could smother him in his sleep,” Joan said, entering the room unceremoniously. 

“Take off your shoes before you come in, you troll,” Levi scolded from where he stood, meticulously inspecting the linens on the bed. “Smothering is a cowardly way to kill a person. I would just slit his throat.”

Joan quickly took off her boots, putting them next to Levi’s near the door. Then she ditched her jacket and began undoing her straps. “Sounds messy.”

“Most people shit themselves when they die, dead-last,” Levi explained. “It would be messy regardless.”

Hands landed on his hips, dragging up and around till Joan was pressed against his back. Levi felt his whole body relax as he leaned into her. He wanted to twist around, toss her on the bed, and fuck her silly. But the bed was currently being used for other things and he had work to do. He could fuck her after he finished his work. 

Still, he dropped a hand to one of Joan’s, giving it a squeeze. He was rewarded with a low sigh in his ear and lips pressing feverish, desperate kisses into his neck. 

“It’s been a long day,” he told her. “You should shower while I do this.” The body wrapped around him tensed, probably taking his orders as a rejection. To ease her mind, he pulled her hand down to his groin and the hardened flesh in his pants. As she stroked him slowly, he bit his lip to keep from sighing and giving in. Instead, he chided, “The sooner I finish this, the sooner we can get to that.”

Hesitantly, she pulled away and Levi heard her footfalls approach the bucket of water in the corner. He listened to the rustle of clothing as she stripped and the splash of water as she began to quickly scrub down. Levi had perfected cleaning as quickly as possible and with a beautiful, naked woman right behind him, he had all the incentive to do this faster than ever. He finished and turned just as Joan was scrubbing her left calf. 

For a moment, he just admired her. The long line of her back was curved as she bent and her full breasts swung with each movement she made. Her freckled shoulders were hunched and from the angle, Levi was denied a view of her plump ass, flat stomach, and the thick forest of brown curls between her legs. That was a shame. Joan glanced up and caught him looking. On instinct he glanced away, shy about being caught ogling her like a peeping Tom. 

The wet cloth hit him smack in the face and he whipped it off, whirling to glare at Joan. “What the fuck, dead-last?” 

Her smile was impish. “Want to help?”

“You’re a grown woman, deadlast. Surely you don’t need help cleaning yourself,” he scoffed. But he felt his lips curve into a smirk and he stalked toward her. 

“I require your superior cleaning skills, captain.” 

Levi stopped a foot from her, letting his gaze lower. Subtly, her shoulders stretched back, pushing her breasts forward. Levi dipped the cloth into the water and dragged it down her shoulder to her breast, gently wiping in small circles. 

“Cleaning a beautiful woman… Two of my favorite things. It’s like a dream come true,” he monotoned. 

“The water’s still warm. You need a shower, too. You’re beginning to smell a little,” she told him, sniffing him. 

“Shut your mouth, deadlast,” Levi scolded, smacking her ass. Then he grabbed a handful and admired the feel of it in his hand. The flesh was soft but the muscle underneath was strong and taunt and it flexed as he gave another squeeze. He tore his hand away and began to strip. Joan was watching him like she was ready to eat him up. 

Meticulously, he folded each article of clothing, much to Joan’s annoyance. Her eyebrow was twitching by the time he was done. To make it up to her, he pulled her against him, licking a long line up her neck to nibble on her ear. The height difference made this angle easy. The feeling of all his naked flesh against hers was indescribable. Every nerve ending in his body was firing. 

“I shouldn’t be fertile,” Joan said. 

“What a great coincidence. Is that what you want to do?” Levi murmured into her ear. 

“Y-yes.” Her voice caught as Levi tongued the shell of her ear. 

His hands dropped down to her hips, along her ass, and under her thighs. He picked her up, her long legs wrapping around his waist and her hands buried in his hair. This would be the perfect moment to kiss her - Levi just knew it. Her face was so open, smiling down at him. She felt so nice in his arms - so warm. Even though he was the one holding her, he felt safe and secure. But… he didn’t kiss her. And that probably didn’t matter because just looking at her was incredibly intimate. 

Fuck… this wasn’t good. He really needed to take his own advice. He should drop her on her ass and get his own room and forget about the dead-last rookie. But… he knew he wasn’t going to do that. And if he wasn’t going to do that, did it really matter if he kissed her? Yes. He knew the answer immediately. It wouldn’t make a difference for him but it would for her. And while he was more likely to survive, on the off-chance he did die before her, she would need to be strong. Distance will help give her strength.

“Hey,” Joan said, cupping his face. “Where did you go?”

“I was wondering if the linens were clean enough to fuck on,” he lied. 

“Just making sure you aren’t having second thoughts,” she said. “If you’re uncomfortable with having sex, we can do something else.”

He tossed her on the bed, unceremoniously. “I am going to fuck you, dead-last.”

Hooking his hands underneath her knees, he pushed them up and apart, then took in the sight of her. She positively glistened. Pressing butterfly kisses into her stomach Levi trailed downward. An insistent hand tugged at his hair, forcing him to look up.

“Stop teasing me,” she echoed his words from the day before. 

“Dead-last,” Levi replied, crawling up her body until both forearms were pressed into the bed and her head was trapped between them. “We have privacy here, unlike any we’d ever get at base and you want to hurry this along?” He adjusted the angle of his hips and let himself slip right up against the juncture of her thighs. “Absolutely not. I fully intend to take my time.”

“Oh… I get it,” Joan drawled. “You’re teasing this out because you won’t have enough stamina for another round. I keep forgetting how old you are.”

Defiance flaring, Levi yanked her knee up and pressed the head of him into her - and then stopped for two reasons. Firstly, this would be her first time and he didn’t want to hurt her by being too rough. Secondly, she was being sassy and he didn’t want to give her what she wanted, even if she’d insulted his pride. That was why she’d done it, after all. 

Joan was holding her breath underneath him, body tense and waiting. Levi rubbed himself against her in long strokes and her hips rose to meet the contact. Then he lowered his mouth to her neck, sucking gently. When she arched, cupping the back of his neck, Levi smirked into her skin. His lips trailed lower until her coarse curls tickled his face. And then he went lower. Her body arched and groaned. She had already been wet but Levi wanted her dripping before he tried anything. Pressing two fingers into her, he stretched her, letting her ride him until she orgasmed. 

Just as her body gave one last spasm, he crawled up her again and slowly pressed himself into her. He watched her face with each inch, worried that he hadn’t prepared her enough. But she just sighed languishly, running one hand up and down his muscular back, while the other rested on the curve of his ass, pressing insistently. 

When he was completely in, he exhaled into her neck and paused, just enjoying the feeling. 

“Nap time already, old man?” Joan said. Though her words were harsh, her voice was still breathless and light. 

This time Levi gave into the taunt, pulling back, pushing her knees up until she was curled in a ball underneath him, and then swinging his hips forcefully. The savage cry that left her mouth was one of more pleasure than pain, but she reached up to clench her hands onto his shoulder and keep him in place. It was rougher than Levi had planned but from the noises she was making, she was enjoying it just as much as he was. Near the end, Levi wanted to feel more of her, so he dropped her legs and let his whole body press against her, still swinging his hips deeply. Joan wrapped her arms around him, digging her nails into his back and pushing back at him, keeping up the rhythm. 

A single cry left her mouth, her body spasming under him and he followed her just as quickly, pulling out and finishing on her stomach.

Kneeling over her, Levi was simply… blown away. 

Her entire body was flushed, the curls between her legs, soaked. Her nipples were peaked and as she tried to steady her labored breathing, her breasts swayed. And then… there were her eyes. They stared up at him with a wide array of emotions, respect, appreciation, lust, admiration… maybe love. Levi had to look away. 

“That was…” Joan began.

“I know,” Levi cut her off - not wanting her to verbalize anything she was feeling. 

Instead, he busied himself by standing, grabbing the washcloth, and wiping his semen from her stomach and from himself. Discarding the cloth, he turned back to find Joan rolled over, making room for him. Levi didn’t cuddle. He really, truly, did not cuddle. But… there was nowhere to go. With other women, he had the excuse of going back to base, or work to do, or Hange to babysit. There was no work to do, here. Climbing into the bed, he figured that surely this couldn’t be terrible… right?

And then she snuggled against his chest, forcing him to put an arm around her, and Levi decided this was anything but terrible. As the sweat dried on their skin, the places they touched felt especially warm. He dragged a finger up her arm, caressing softly. She let out a low sigh and snuggled deeper into him. 

Because of his inexperience, Levi didn’t know if they were supposed to be silent or if they were supposed to converse. That was where the phrase, “pillow-talk” came from right? Shouldn’t they be talking? Or were they just supposed to enjoy the moment?

Maybe two minutes later, a small snore erupted from Joan’s mouth. It was squeaky and soft, but unmistakable. Levi would have chuckled, if it wouldn’t have woken her up. She called him an old man and she was the one passing out before round two… Gooseflesh was already appearing along the arm he was stroking and he didn’t think it had anything to do with his touch. Gingerly, Levi reached for the blanket at the edge of the bed, using flexibility he didn’t know he had to get ahold of it without waking up his bedmate. Then he draped it over both of them.

Plagued by insomnia, Levi rarely slept more than a couple of hours at a time and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in a bed. His desk sufficed most nights and if he was particularly tired, the couch in his office worked just fine as well. So, he stayed awake, petting Joan softly. 

Eventually, he did manage to get some rest. But like clock-work within an hour or so, he was wide awake. At some point, Joan had rolled over and away from him. In his sleep he must have instinctively followed her because he was pressed up against her back, arms completely wrapped around her. He was even holding her hand. 

And his hardness was pressed right up against her ass. 

Surely she wouldn’t mind being woken up for round two, Levi decided, reaching to cup one of her breasts. 

Turns out, she most certainly did not mind. Nor did she mind round three or four. 

~*~

They reached the northern training corps base the next day, while the sun was still high in the sky. That did not, however, help with the terrible cold. 

Levi escorted the doctor into the base headquarters, instructing Joan to stay with the carriage. 

Joan shivered outside the carriage.. Her nose was bright red and hurt. It was like a burn - but it was cold? Counterintuitive, much. At least the constant shivering distracted her from the bleak soreness between her legs. Last night she had definitely overdone it. Levi hadn’t been particularly rough and she had most certainly been wet enough, but the throbbing still continued. She blamed it on round four - just as the pale light of day snuck into their room, the mild soreness had started but she had wanted to be on top. She’d pushed Levi down on the bed and climbed onto him, surprised he would let her take control but glad he had. He’d held her hips in his hands but let her ride him at her leisure. 

And ride she had. And now she was paying the price. 

A hand appeared in her line of sight, yanking her scarf up, over the bottom half of her face. “Protect your extremities, dead-last,” Levi said. “Otherwise your nose will fall off.”

“I don’t think that’s how frost-bite works,” she muttered darkly.

Levi ignored her comment and paid the carriage driver for his services, then nodded to Joan. “The doctor is making a preliminary round through the diseased. We have been assigned rooms in the main building. Come on.”

“Can I see the patients?” she asked, trailing behind him. He’d purposefully given her more stuff to carry, despite his inhuman strength.

“No, dead-last. That’s why we brought the doctor.”

“I thought I was coming along because I have medical training, you know - and I can help the doctor.” 

“If the doctor needs help, he will let us know.”

“Levi.”

“Captain Levi, dead-last. Don’t be improper.”

Joan stopped in the middle of the hallway, glaring at him for a moment. Then, she huffed and continued. “My apologies, captain. I didn’t get much sleep last night and I’m a little grumpy.”

Levi snorted and held a door open for her. “This is your room. Mine is three doors down. Drop my stuff there, make sure it’s spotless, and then head to the mess hall for dinner, understood? Do not go looking for the quarantine.”

“Yes, sir,” Joan nodded because her hands were too full to salute. 

Then, Joan followed her orders verbatim - she “dropped” his bags in the middle of the floor, scrubbed every inch of the room, and then headed to the mess hall. Along the way, she encountered a cluster of trainees and asked where the quarantine was. So, when she made her way over there, she didn’t have to look for it - she knew exactly where it was.

Two rows of beds had been set up and the rows were at least ten people deep. Some were trainees, others were instructors. All pale, clammy, and sporting the telltale yellow eyes. None of them were laying down, though. Most were sitting up, reading, chatting with neighbors, playing cards. Joan lifted her mask to her face, keeping the airborne germs at bay. 

“Dead-last,” Levi drawled, shaking his head as he caught sight of her. He was at the end, looming over the doctor.

Doctor Killian was pressing along the abdomen of the last patient all the way at the end. He wore gloves and a mask, his little glasses perched over his beady eyes. When he glanced up, he scoffed, “We are trying to limit the infection - you should leave.”

Joan gestured to Levi. “The captain is the only one without medical training,” she told the doctor. “I know my shit. I can help.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Dr. Killian asked, gesturing to the man - no, boy, in the bed in front of them. Joan approached. He was having trouble breathing, for one. Without gloves, she was hesitant to touch his sweaty forehead, but she reached out and hovered her palm over the flesh. Even with the distance, it was warm. 

“He improved, didn’t he,” Joan said, noting the training gear on the floor next to him. He had been cleaning it maybe just a few hours prior - the smell of oil lingered even over the smell of disease. 

“Yes,” Levi answered. “The medics said he was one of the first to show symptoms and his fever broke last night. He had a burst of energy and now he’s like this…”

“His body is in shock,” Joan explained. “Most yellow fever victims get a sudden onset of symptoms and they get better over time. After a few hours, or even as long as a day, a number of them will fall ill again - this time much more severely. His liver is shutting down. Maybe his kidneys, too.”

“Not the kidneys yet,” Dr. Killian said, his gaze lingering on the poor boy’s face. He had to be a fresh recruit - maybe only twelve. Then the doctor looked to Joan. “You can stay. Captain, make yourself useful somewhere else.”

Joan bit her cheek to keep from laughing at the expression on Levi’s face. Normally, she’d steer clear but she had to ask, “Could you please see that someone brings fresh water, sir. We need to keep them hydrated.”

Levi glared at her, but nodded. Then he left. 

~*~

Joan’s first epidemic had happened when she was ten and had swept through the southern farming villages like wildfire. Everyone was always travelling amid and amongst the towns that when the first sign of illness reared its ugly head, most of the villages had at least one person showing symptoms even before messengers could get there. 

Then, just like now, the doctors took turns watching the patients. Joan brushed her hair back with her forearm and surveyed the damage. No one dead yet. In the town below, however, Levi had conveyed to her that at least two people were dead - both elderly. That was a good sign. It wasn’t strong enough to kill anyone but the already weakened. Joan just prayed none of the sick here had any pre-existing conditions that would make this worse. Assuming everyone was young and strong, they would get through this.

For two weeks, Joan stayed in the quarantine. When that first patient - the one who had been in shock - had been well enough to leave, Joan was hopeful. They got new patients but apparently the quarantine had worked, the influx of new patients was less than the one’s getting better and leaving. 

And then another new patient was brought in. 

Joan had finished lunch and noted the new body being carried in on the stretcher, cursing a bit. They hadn’t had a new patient in three days. Joan had hoped to keep up the record. 

“He was found this morning in bed after he didn’t show up for breakfast or lunch with the instructor,” the trainees explained. 

Dr. Killian made his way over, took one look at his face, and gestured to the back room. “Put him in there,” he said. “We are winding down the number of infected people.” He turned to Joan, “You want to me to strip him?”

Each patient was put into bed clothes and their other clothes were furiously scrubbed clean or burned depending on how contaminated they might be. Shirts and scarves were burned because they were so close to the head. Pants were more expensive, the fabric less permeable, and were less likely to carry the disease. 

Originally, Joan had been in charge of stripping, cleaning, and burning. Dr. Killian had felt it was beneath him and honestly, it kind of was. For all his asshole-ishness, he was a brilliant doctor. Apparently the ego was backed up by actual skill and even Joan was impressed. 

“Why are you offering?” Joan asked, approaching the backroom as the patient was carried in. 

“He’s your commanding officer.”

~*~

Sometimes Death raced him up the branch   
And beat him to a shack;  
But sometimes when Doc hollered “Wait!”  
Life fluttered and came back.

So many times he rolled his sleeves   
And waded in the fray.  
Because of that good angry man  
I am alive today.


End file.
